In 2024, the mortality rate in China ranged at approximately 7.76 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 2024. 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.

In 2024, the total number of deaths in China amounted to around 10.93 million. The number of deaths increased slightly but steadily over the past two decades, only disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. This trend is mainly related to China’s demographic development and is expected to accelerate in the upcoming years. China’s aging society China had the second largest population on earth in 2024. However, population growth in China has gradually decreased over the last decades and finally turned negative in 2022. Together with steadily improving health standards and growing life expectancy, this has led to a quickly aging society. As relatively large age cohorts are now reaching the years of retirement, the number of elderly in the country is projected to increase quickly. This is especially visible in the number of people aged 80 years and above, which is expected to rise more than four-fold from 32 million in 2020 to 132 million in 2050. This development will probably be the main factor leading to a growing number of mortalities in China in the upcoming years. China’s mortality rate in comparison Globally, China’s mortality rate is at a low range at slightly less than eight deaths per thousand inhabitants annually. The low mortality rate was a result of political stability and steady improvements in the health system. As the Chinese population grows older, cancer, heart attacks, and cerebrovascular diseases are increasingly common causes of death. In comparison to most Western countries, the number of fatalities due to COVID-19 was low in 2020 and 2021, but there was a slight excess mortality in 2023 and. Most common infectious diseases with high death rates in China were AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Hepatitis B in 2021.

UNICEF's country profile for China, including under-five mortality rates, child health, education and sanitation data.

In 2022, the mortality rate in different regions in China varied from around 9.09 deaths per 1,000 people in Heilongjiang province to 4.97 deaths per 1,000 in Guangdong. The average national mortality rate ranged at 7.37 per mille that year.

The infant mortality rate in China decreased to 4.8 deaths per 1,000 live births compared to the previous year. As a result, the infant mortality rate in China saw its lowest number in 2022 with 4.8 deaths per 1,000 live births. The infant mortality rate refers to the number of infants who do not survive past the first year of life, expressed as a value per 1,000 births.

Forecast: Under 5 Mortality Rate in China 2022 - 2026 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

CN: Population: Death Rate: Shanxi data was reported at 0.838 % in 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 0.773 % for 2022. CN: Population: Death Rate: Shanxi data is updated yearly, averaging 0.603 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2023, with 34 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.838 % in 2023 and a record low of 0.532 % in 2018. CN: Population: Death Rate: Shanxi data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Socio-Demographic – Table CN.GA: Population: Death Rate: By Region.

Forecast: Female Infant Mortality Rate in China 2022 - 2026 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

The child mortality rate in China, for children under the age of five, was 417 deaths per thousand births in 1850. This means that for all children born in 1850, almost 42 percent did not make it to their fifth birthday. Over the course of the next 170 years, this number has dropped drastically, and the rate has dropped to its lowest point ever in 2020 where it is just twelve deaths per thousand births. The sharpest decrease came between 1950 and 1955, as the Chinese Civil War ended, and the country began to recover from the Second World War. The decline then stopped between 1955 and 1965, due to famines caused by Chairman Mao Zedong's attempted Great Leap Forward, which was a failed attempt to industrialize China in the late twentieth century.

Forecast: Neonatal Mortality Rate in China 2022 - 2026 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

This line chart displays suicide mortality rate (per 100,000 population) by date using the aggregation average, weighted by population and is filtered where the country is China. The data is about countries per year.

Mortality rate, under-5 (per 1,000 live births) in China was reported at 6.6 % in 2022, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. China - Mortality rate, under-5 (per 1,000) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on March of 2025.

Population: Death Rate: Beijing data was reported at 0.613 % in 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 0.572 % for 2022. Population: Death Rate: Beijing data is updated yearly, averaging 0.530 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2023, with 34 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.616 % in 1993 and a record low of 0.426 % in 2011. Population: Death Rate: Beijing data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Socio-Demographic – Table CN.GA: Population: Death Rate: By Region.

Forecast: Maternal Mortality Rate in China 2022 - 2026 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

China Mortality from CVD, Cancer, Diabetes or CRD between Exact Ages 30 and 70: Female data was reported at 14.100 NA in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 14.400 NA for 2015. China Mortality from CVD, Cancer, Diabetes or CRD between Exact Ages 30 and 70: Female data is updated yearly, averaging 15.100 NA from Dec 2000 (Median) to 2016, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 18.100 NA in 2000 and a record low of 14.100 NA in 2016. China Mortality from CVD, Cancer, Diabetes or CRD between Exact Ages 30 and 70: Female data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s China – Table CN.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Mortality from CVD, cancer, diabetes or CRD is the percent of 30-year-old-people who would die before their 70th birthday from any of cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, or chronic respiratory disease, assuming that s/he would experience current mortality rates at every age and s/he would not die from any other cause of death (e.g., injuries or HIV/AIDS).; ; World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory Data Repository (http://apps.who.int/ghodata/).; Weighted average;

Forecast: Child Mortality Rate in China 2024 - 2028 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

Forecast: Suicide Mortality Rate in China 2023 - 2027 Discover more data with ReportLinker!

This statistic shows the maternal mortality rate in China from 2005 to 2022. In 2022, the maternal mortality rate in China per 100,000 live births ranged at about 15.7.

China Mortality Rate Attributed to Unsafe Water, Unsafe Sanitation and Lack of Hygiene: per 100,000 Population data was reported at 0.600 Ratio in 2016. China Mortality Rate Attributed to Unsafe Water, Unsafe Sanitation and Lack of Hygiene: per 100,000 Population data is updated yearly, averaging 0.600 Ratio from Dec 2016 (Median) to 2016, with 1 observations. China Mortality Rate Attributed to Unsafe Water, Unsafe Sanitation and Lack of Hygiene: per 100,000 Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s China – Table CN.World Bank: Health Statistics. Mortality rate attributed to unsafe water, unsafe sanitation and lack of hygiene is deaths attributable to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene focusing on inadequate WASH services per 100,000 population. Death rates are calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the total population. In this estimate, only the impact of diarrhoeal diseases, intestinal nematode infections, and protein-energy malnutrition are taken into account.; ; World Health Organization, Global Health Observatory Data Repository (http://apps.who.int/ghodata/).; Weighted average;

Forecast: Male Infant Mortality Rate in China 2022 - 2026 Discover more data with ReportLinker!