Beijing: The much-anticipated answer to a very important question came on May 11 as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced the results of the seventh national population census.
In the past decade, China’s population growth slowed down, yet remained steady, according to NBS Commissioner Ning Jizhe. In 2020, the total population on the mainland was more than 1.41 billion, approximately accounting for 18 percent of the world’s total.
“China is still the world’s most populous country,” Ning said at a press conference. The population is predicted to remain above 1.4 billion for a period of time, he added.
The census, a roughly once-in-a-decade event, kicked off on November 1, 2020, and information was collected door to door by approximately 7 million census takers. According to the NBS, an estimated 0.05 percent was left out of the census by error and was not added back into the count. Before the release of the census results, there was speculation that China’s population had already started to dwindle. “China’s population will peak in the future, but it remains uncertain as to exactly when it will happen,” Ning said. “Population has been a long-term and strategic issue of overall importance. The seventh census has offered a clear understanding of the size, structure and spatial distribution of China’s population, and accurately reflected the current trends of demographic changes, yielding a lot of valuable information,” Ning said. In the past decade, 72.06 million persons were added to the population, translating to an increase of 5.38 percent, or an average annual growth rate of 0.53 percent, slightly lower than the 0.57 percent in the decade before 2010.
The census also showed that the population got significantly better educated, its structure had changed, and it got more mobile and urbanized than a decade ago.
The change in the age composition is noteworthy. Those aged 14 or under accounted for 17.95 percent of the total, up 1.35 percentage points from a decade ago; those aged 15-59 made up 63.35 percent, down 6.79 percentage points; and those at 60 and above were 18.7 percent, up by 5.44 percentage points.
– The Daily Mail-Beijing Review News exchange item
