As of 2023, the bulk of the Chinese population was aged between 25 and 59 years, amounting to around half of the population. A breakdown of the population by broad age groups reveals that around 61.3 percent of the total population was in working age between 16 and 59 years in 2023. Age cohorts below 25 years were considerably smaller, although there was a slight growth trend in recent years. Population development in China Population development in China over the past decades has been strongly influenced by political and economic factors. After a time of high fertility rates during the Maoist regime, China introduced birth-control measures in the 1970s, including the so-called one-child policy. The fertility rate dropped accordingly from around six children per woman in the 1960s to below two at the end of the 20th century. At the same time, life expectancy increased consistently. In the face of a rapidly aging society, the government gradually lifted the one-child policy after 2012, finally arriving at a three-child policy in 2021. However, like in most other developed countries nowadays, people in China are reluctant to have more than one or two children due to high costs of living and education, as well as changed social norms and private values. China’s top-heavy age pyramid The above-mentioned developments are clearly reflected in the Chinese age pyramid. The age cohorts between 30 and 39 years are the last two larger age cohorts. The cohorts between 15 and 24, which now enter childbearing age, are decisively smaller, which will have a negative effect on the number of births in the coming decade. When looking at a gender distribution of the population pyramid, a considerable gender gap among the younger age cohorts becomes visible, leaving even less room for growth in birth figures.

According to latest figures, the Chinese population decreased by 1.39 million to around 1.408 billion people in 2024. 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 -0.1 percent in 2024. Nevertheless, compared to the world population in total, China held a share of about 17 percent of the overall global population in 2024. 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.

According to the age distribution of China's population in 2024, approximately 68.6 percent of the population were in their working age between 15 and 64 years of age. Retirees aged 65 years and above made up about 15.6 percent of the total population. Age distribution in China As can be seen from this statistic, the age pyramid in China has been gradually shifting towards older demographics during the past decade. Mainly due to low birth rates in China, the age group of 0 to 14 year-olds has remained at around 16 to 17 percent since 2010, whereas the age groups 65 years and over have seen growth of nearly seven percentage points. Thus, the median age of the Chinese population has been constantly rising since 1970 and is forecast to reach 52 years by 2050. Accompanied by a slightly growing mortality rate of more than 7 per thousand, China is showing strong signs of an aging population. China's aging society The impact of this severe change in demographics is the subject of an ongoing scientific discussion. Rising standards of living in China contain the demand for better health care and pension insurance for retirees, which will be hard to meet with the social insurance system in China still being in its infancy. Per capita expenditure on medical care and services of urban households has grown more than ninefold since 2000 with a clear and distinctive upward trend for the near future. As for social security spending, public pension expenditure is forecast to take up approximately nine percent of China's GDP by 2050.