According to latest figures, the Chinese population decreased by 3.39 million to around 1.405 billion people in 2025. After decades of rapid growth, China arrived at the turning point of its demographic development in 2022, which was earlier than expected. The annual population decrease is estimated to remain at moderate levels until around 2030 but to accelerate thereafter. Population development in China China had for a long time been the country with the largest population worldwide, but according to UN estimates, it has been overtaken by India in 2023. As the population in India is still growing, the country is very likely to remain being home of the largest population on earth in the near future. Due to several mechanisms put into place by the Chinese government as well as changing circumstances in the working and social environment of the Chinese people, population growth has subsided over the past decades, displaying an annual population growth rate of -0.2 percent in 2025. Nevertheless, compared to the world population in total, China held a share of about 17 percent of the overall global population in 2025. China's aging population In terms of demographic developments, the birth control efforts of the Chinese government had considerable effects on the demographic pyramid in China. Upon closer examination of the age distribution, a clear trend of an aging population becomes visible. In order to curb the negative effects of an aging population, the Chinese government abolished the one-child policy in 2015, which had been in effect since 1979, and introduced a three-child policy in May 2021. However, many Chinese parents nowadays are reluctant to have a second or third child, as is the case in most of the developed countries in the world. The number of births in China varied in the years following the abolishment of the one-child policy, but did not increase considerably. Among the reasons most prominent for parents not having more children are the rising living costs and costs for child care, growing work pressure, a growing trend towards self-realization and individualism, and changing social behaviors.

In 2025, about 60.6 percent of the Chinese population was between 16 and 59 years old. Apart from the information given on broad age groups in this statistic, some more information is provided by a timeline for the age distribution and a population breakdown by smaller age groups. Demographic development in China China ranked as the second most populous country in the world with a population of nearly 1.4 billion as of mid 2025, surpassed only by India. As the world population reached more than eight billion in mid 2025, China represented almost one fifth of the global population. China's population increased exponentially between the 1950s and the early 1980s due to Mao Zedong's population policy. To tackle the problem of overpopulation, a one-child policy was implemented in 1979. Since then, China's population growth has slowed from more than two percent per annum in the 1970s to around 0.5 percent per annum in the 2000s, and finally turned negative in 2022. China's aging population One outcome of the strict population policy is the acceleration of demographic aging trends. According to the United Nations, China's population median age has more than doubled over the last five decades, from 18 years in 1970 to 37.5 years in 2020. Few countries have aged faster than China. The dramatic aging of the population is matched by slower growth. The total fertility rate, measuring the number of children a woman can expect to have in her life, stood at just around 1.2 children. This incremental decline in labor force could lead to future challenges for the Chinese government, causing instability in current health care and social insurance mechanisms. To learn more about demographic development of the rural and urban population in China, please take a look at our reports on population in China and aging population in China.

Trends in the evolution of China’s population structure, from 2010 to 2021.

Age and sex distribution of China in 2022. Total population: 1,425,179,568.

In 2020, about 17.9 percent of the population in China had been 60 years and older. This share is growing rapidly and was estimated to reach 40 percent by 2050. China's aging population With China’s boomer generation growing old and life expectancy increasing at the same time, the number of people at an age of 60 or above nearly doubled between 2000 and 2020 and reached around 255 million. This development is even more pronounced for the age group of 80 and above, which nearly tripled and is expected to reach a size of roughly 132 million in 2050, up from only 32 million in 2020. At the same time, the share of the working-age population is forecasted to decrease gradually from 64 percent of the total population in 2020 to around 50 percent in 2050, which could pose a heavy economic strain on the social security system. The old-age dependency ratio, which denotes the relation of the old-age to the working-age population, is estimated to grow from 18.2 percent in 2020 to more than 50 percent in 2050, implying that by then, statistically, two working-age adults would have to support one elderly. Strain on the social security net During the last 15 years, China's government has successfully increased the coverage of the pension insurance and health insurance. Today, most of the people are covered by some kind of social insurance. Conditions in the pension system are generous, with a regular retirement age for males at 60 years and women at 50 or 55. With the number of retirees increasing quickly, the social insurance system is now under pressure. From an economic point of view, improving the productivity of China's economy would be the primary choice for mitigating alleged inconsistencies of the system. However, without increasing the burden on the working people while tightening payment conditions, balancing the social security net could prove to be challenging.

The demographic structure is an important factor influencing the development of the services industry. As the country with the world’s most serious aging problem, China’s service industry structure is likely to undergo profound changes in response to the rapid demographic transition. Therefore, this paper examines the effect of population aging on the development of the service industry in the context of China’s accelerating population aging. The study found that: (1) Population aging has a significant "inverted U" effect on the development of the services industry. (2) The impact of population aging on the development of the service industry has obvious regional and industry heterogeneity. The study of regional heterogeneity found that population aging in economically developed regions has a more obvious effect on the development of the service industry than in economically less developed regions. Industry heterogeneity studies found that population aging has an obvious promotional effect on the development of medical and other rigid demand industries, while the effect on other non-rigid demand industries is not significant. (3) The threshold effect test found that when the degree of population aging exceeds the threshold, the stimulating effect of population aging on the development of the services industry is no longer significant. The research in this paper provides useful insights into the likely response to changes in the industrial structure of the services industry, and offers some implications for countries with similar demographic profiles to China.

CN: Labour Fource data was reported at 780,240.000 Person th in 2021. This records a decrease from the previous number of 783,920.000 Person th for 2020. CN: Labour Fource data is updated yearly, averaging 762,175.000 Person th from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2021, with 32 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 800,910.000 Person th in 2015 and a record low of 653,230.000 Person th in 1990. CN: Labour Fource data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The data is categorized under Global Database’s China – Table CN.OECD.MSTI: Population, Labour Force and Employment: Non OECD Member: Annual.

In 2025, the mortality rate in China ranged at approximately 8.04 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants. The mortality rate in China displayed an uneven development over the last two decades. This is mainly related to the very uneven sizes of Chinese age groups, improvements in health care, and the occurrence of epidemics. However, an overall growing trend is undisputable and related to China's aging population. As the share of the population aged 60 and above will be growing significantly over the upcoming two decades, the mortality rate will further increase in the years ahead. Population in China China was the second most populous country in the world in 2025. However, due to several mechanisms put into place by the Chinese government as well as changing circumstances in the working and social environment of the Chinese people, population growth has subsided over the past decades and finally turned negative in 2022. The major factor for this development was a set of policies introduced by the Chinese government in 1979, including the so-called one-child policy, which was intended to improve people’s living standards by limiting the population growth. However, with the decreasing birth rate and slower population growth, China nowadays is facing the problems of a rapidly aging population. Birth control in China According to the one-child policy, a married couple was only allowed to have one child. Only under certain circumstances were parents allowed to have a second child. As the performance of family control had long been related to the assessment of local government’s achievements, violations of the rule were severely punished. The birth control in China led to a decreasing birth rate and a more skewed gender ratio of new births due to a widely preference for male children in the Chinese society. Nowadays, since China’s population is aging rapidly, the one-child policy has been re-considered as an obstacle for the country’s further economic development. Since 2014, the one-child policy has been gradually relaxed and fully eliminated at the end of 2015. In May 2021, a new three-child policy has been introduced. However, many young Chinese people today are not willing to have more children due to high costs of raising a child, especially in urban areas.

Township is so far the smallest unit for official demographic statistics in China. When correlated with administrative boundary, demographic data can be used to analyze the spatial distribution of population, which is significant for research on geography, resources, environment, ecology, disasters, sustainable development, etc. Based on the demographic data of the 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions publicized by the National Bureau of Statistics in 2010, we correlated township administrative units with the number of population in each, while attending to spatial topological problems such as pattern spot gaps and overlaps between the spatial divisions. In total, 42122 spatial units were paired with their demographic data by using the decision tree. The average population density was calculated as the number of population per spatial unit, which was then converted into vector data for generating the dataset of township-level population density in China (2010). A validation of the data shows an overall accuracy of 99%, with a less than 10% deviation for each province or municipality. The dataset is in the TIFF format, with a total volume of 108 MB.

This study examined the county-level administrative regions in the province of Henan from 2010 to 2020. The relevant data on the floating population and socio-economic development come from the sixth and seventh national censuses (2010 and 2020, respectively), the Henan Statistical Yearbook, the China Statistical Yearbook for the regional economy, and the National Bureau of Statistics annual statistics. The floating population is defined as migrants who have been residing in one county for over six months and have not moved to a new place of household domicile. In this study, the migrant population in input areas was counted as positive, while the output areas were negative. In this study, counties and provincial municipalities are taken as the basic units. Due to the high mobility of the population within the same municipal district and the difficulty of counting the data, this paper combines the prefectural municipal districts as one research unit. Notably, since 31 December 2019, Huaiyang County has been part of Zhoukou City. The dataset includes the regional household population, the resident population, and the floating population. In addition, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was used to demonstrate the scale and level of regional economic development. The average wage of employed persons (WAGE) was used to indicate the local wage level. The secondary industry as a share of GDP(SECO) was used to indicate the industrial structure. Local government general budgetary expenditure per capita (EXPEN) represents the effect of the government on economic development, reflecting the general level of public services and social welfare. Per capita education expenditure (EDU) to indicate the education level. The number of qualified doctors to indicate medical service quality. In this study, the influence of the independent variables was first assessed using the OLS model. In addition, variables with significance levels of over 5% and multicollinearity issues were eliminated from the OLS model. Finally, an analysis of the spatially varying relationship between floating populations and potential influencing factors is presented in this study using the GWR model by ArcGIS 10.2.

The changing population age structure has a significant influence on the economy, society, and numerous other aspects of a country. This paper has innovatively applied the method of compositional data forecasting for the prediction of population age changes of the young (aged 0–14), the middle-aged (aged 15–64), and the elderly (aged older than 65) in China, India, and Vietnam by 2030 based on data from 1960 to 2016. To select the best-suited forecasting model, an array of data transformation approaches and forecasting models have been extensively employed, and a large number of comparisons have been made between the aforementioned methods. The best-suited model for each country is identified considering the root mean squared error and mean absolute percent error values from the compositional data. As noted in this study, first and foremost, it is predicted that by the year 2030, China will witness the disappearance of population dividend and get mired in an aging problem far more severe than that of India or Vietnam. Second, Vietnam’s trend of change in population age structure resembles that of China, but the country will sustain its good health as a whole. Finally, the working population of India demonstrates a strong rising trend, indicating that the age structure of the Indian population still remains relatively “young”. Meanwhile, the continuous rise in the proportion of elderly population and the gradual leveling off growth of the young population have nevertheless become serious problems in the world. The present paper attempts to offer crucial insights into the Asian population size, labor market and urbanization, and, moreover, provides suggestions for a sustainable global demographic development.

In 2025, approximately 67.9 percent of the total population in China lived in cities. The urbanization rate has increased steadily in China over the last decades. Degree of urbanization in China Urbanization is generally defined as a process of people migrating from rural to urban areas, during which towns and cities are formed and increase in size. Even though urbanization is not exclusively a modern phenomenon, industrialization and modernization did accelerate its progress. As shown in the statistic at hand, the degree of urbanization of China, the world's second-largest economy, rose from 36 percent in 2000 to around 51 percent in 2011. That year, the urban population surpassed the number of rural residents for the first time in the country's history.The urbanization rate varies greatly in different parts of China. While urbanization is lesser advanced in western or central China, in most coastal regions in eastern China more than two-thirds of the population lives already in cities. Among the ten largest Chinese cities in 2021, six were located in coastal regions in East and South China. Urbanization in international comparison Brazil and Russia, two other BRIC countries, display a much higher degree of urbanization than China. On the other hand, in India, the country with the worlds’ largest population, a mere 36.4 percent of the population lived in urban regions as of 2023. Similar to other parts of the world, the progress of urbanization in China is closely linked to modernization. From 2000 to 2024, the contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product in China shrank from 14.7 percent to 6.8 percent. Even more evident was the decrease of workforce in agriculture.

The share of urban population in China amounted to 64.57 percent in 2023. Between 1960 and 2023, the share rose by 48.37 percentage points, though the increase followed an uneven trajectory rather than a consistent upward trend.

The aging population is a common problem faced by most countries in the world. This study uses 18 years (from 2002 to 2019) of panel data from 31 regions in China (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan Province), and establishes a panel threshold regression model to study the non-linear impact of the aging population on economic development. It is different from traditional research in that this paper divides 31 regions in China into three regions: Eastern, Central, and Western according to the classification standard of the National Bureau of Statistics of China and compares the different impacts of the aging population on economic development in the three regions. Although this study finds that the aging population promotes the economy of China’s eastern, central, and western regions, different threshold variables have dramatically different influences. When the sum of export and import is the threshold variable, the impact of the aging population on the eastern and the central region of China is significantly larger than that of the western region of China. However, when the unemployment rate is the threshold variable, the impact of the aging population on the western region of China is dramatically higher than the other regions’ impact. Thus, one of the contributions of this study is that if the local government wants to increase the positive impact of the aging population on the per capita GDP of China, the local governments of different regions should advocate more policies that align with their economic situation rather than always emulating policies from other regions.

Macau MO: Refugee Population: by Country or Territory of Origin data was reported at 4.000 Person in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 5.000 Person for 2015. Macau MO: Refugee Population: by Country or Territory of Origin data is updated yearly, averaging 8.000 Person from Dec 1996 (Median) to 2016, with 21 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 20.000 Person in 2004 and a record low of 1.000 Person in 2013. Macau MO: Refugee Population: by Country or Territory of Origin data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Macau SAR – Table MO.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Refugees are people who are recognized as refugees under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, people recognized as refugees in accordance with the UNHCR statute, people granted refugee-like humanitarian status, and people provided temporary protection. Asylum seekers--people who have applied for asylum or refugee status and who have not yet received a decision or who are registered as asylum seekers--are excluded. Palestinian refugees are people (and their descendants) whose residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 and who lost their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. Country of origin generally refers to the nationality or country of citizenship of a claimant.; ; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Statistics Database, Statistical Yearbook and data files, complemented by statistics on Palestinian refugees under the mandate of the UNRWA as published on its website. Data from UNHCR are available online at: www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html.; Sum;

In 2021, around *** million Chinese children and adolescents suffered from short-sightedness, making up nearly ** percent of the total population. The prevalence of myopia was strongly linked to the children's education level, with less than ** percent of six-year-olds having the condition and **** in **** high school students. Despite this, given the growing awareness of the significance of eye health, the number of children with myopia in China is projected to drop to less than ** million by 2030.

China Organic Food Market - The report covers China organic food market size, segmentation on the basis of source of procurement, urban and rural demand, different organic food types, distribution channels and major cities.

China Dental Implants Market was valued at USD 750 Mn in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 1,100 Mn by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 4.90% from 2025 to 2032.

Aging Population and Increasing Dental Problems: According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, by the end of 2022, China’s population aged 65 and up will be 209 million, accounting for 14.9% of the total population. According to the Chinese Stomatological Association, roughly 75% of older Chinese individuals suffer from tooth loss, with an average of 4.2 missing teeth per person over the age of 65.

Rising Disposable Income and Healthcare Expenses: According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s per capita disposable income will reach 36,883 yuan (roughly $5,700) in 2022, a 5.1% increase from the previous year. The National Health Commission of China reported that the country’s total health expenditure reached 7.13 trillion yuan in 2021, with dental care costs increasing at an annual rate of approximately 15%.

BackgroundThis study aims to explore the epidemiological trends of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) over the past three decades in China and further predict the trends of IBD in the next 25 years.MethodsThe prevalence, incidence, mortality, years of life lived with disability (YLDs), years of life lost (YLLs), disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), and annual percentage changes of the above metrics of IBD in China from 1990 to 2019 were extracted from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. The corresponding trends in the next 25 years were predicted.ResultsFrom 1990 to 2019, the cases of IBD in China raised to 484 thousand [95% uncertainty interval (UI) 411–571] and 427 thousand (366–498) among males and females, respectively. The age-standardized incidence rate of IBD increased from 1.72 per 100,000 population (1.44–2.05) to 3.35 per 100,000 population (2.88–3.88) among males and from 1.20 per 100,000 population (1.02–1.42) to 2.65 per 100,000 population (2.29–3.08) among females. The highest incidence rate occurred in people aged 35–39 years. The total YLDs attributed to IBD significantly increased, but the YLLs showed a decreasing trend, resulting in minor alterations of the DALYs. In the next 25 years, the incidence of IBD would continue to increase until a plateau by 2030, and IBD-related deaths would also increase to about 7.57 thousand by 2044 despite the decreasing age-standardized mortality rate. Similar trends were observed for both sexes, with a slight male predominance.ConclusionsAlthough China is still a low-endemic area of IBD, the prevalence and incidence of IBD dramatically increased in the past three decades. The burden of IBD in China is expected to grow continuously in the next 25 years due to the large population base and severe aging problem. China is estimated to enter the Compounding Prevalence stage around 2030.

Hong Kong HK: Refugee Population: by Country or Territory of Origin data was reported at 6.000 Person in 2017. This records a decrease from the previous number of 12.000 Person for 2016. Hong Kong HK: Refugee Population: by Country or Territory of Origin data is updated yearly, averaging 13.000 Person from Dec 1992 (Median) to 2017, with 25 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 261.000 Person in 1994 and a record low of 2.000 Person in 1993. Hong Kong HK: Refugee Population: by Country or Territory of Origin data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Hong Kong SAR – Table HK.World Bank.WDI: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Refugees are people who are recognized as refugees under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, people recognized as refugees in accordance with the UNHCR statute, people granted refugee-like humanitarian status, and people provided temporary protection. Asylum seekers--people who have applied for asylum or refugee status and who have not yet received a decision or who are registered as asylum seekers--are excluded. Palestinian refugees are people (and their descendants) whose residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 and who lost their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. Country of origin generally refers to the nationality or country of citizenship of a claimant.; ; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Statistics Database, Statistical Yearbook and data files, complemented by statistics on Palestinian refugees under the mandate of the UNRWA as published on its website. Data from UNHCR are available online at: www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html.; Sum;