China’s census 2021 and population facts

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  China’s census 2021 and population facts

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• China's population attracts attention: Census data doen not attract too much attention usually, unless the country counting its people is both the world’s largest and on the brink of decline. The results of China’s seventh census, conducted in 2020 and released on May 11th, 2021 were big news. 
• First input: China's population reached 1.41 bn in 2020, up by 5.4% from a decade ago. There were reports in media earlier suspecting a drop in numbers, which would have marked the first decline in six decades.

1. China's National Bureau of Statistics had originally promised to publish the figures in the first half of April 2021
2. Taken at face value, the population increase in 2020 when compared with annual birth figures suggested that, miraculously, no one died last year.

• Understanding the data: The controversies can be explained away. It is misleading to compare China’s annually reported population figures, extrapolations based on tiny samples, with its once-a-decade census, in which everyone in the country is considered. Demographers said the covid-19 pandemic, during which tens of millions of migrant workers returned to their rural homes, caused delays to the count. And upward revisions to past population data help resolve the death-free miracle (millions did in fact pass away last year).
• Trends: Beyond the controversies, the census shone a light on the demographic trends reshaping China. 

1. The country is ageing rapidly. The number of people aged 60 and older hit 264 m in 2020, up by more than 80 m over the past decade. Longer lifespans are a marker of development success.
2. More worrying, though, is the plunge in fertility. Births last year fell to 12 m, down by nearly 20% from 2019. 
3. When China ended its one-child policy in 2015, the government expected a baby boom. Instead, soaring housing and education costs and other realities of modern life led more women to choose not to marry. China’s fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman is about the same as Japan’s, and well below the 2.1 needed to keep a population stable. (India's total fertility rate touched 2.1 in 2020)
4. China's population is still growing but will peak in the next few years, nearly a decade earlier than expected.

• Rapid ageing: This will change the state’s role in society and add to fiscal pressures. For decades, benefiting from a bulge of young workers, officials could focus their spending on infrastructure. Now they will have to spend more on health and social care, and threadbare pension plans. All this raises questions about whether China will grow old before it grows rich.
• Powerful youth: The census also showed how demographic changes are making China a more potent economic force. In 2020 it was home to 218 m university graduates, nearly double the number in 2010. Even if the working-age population is declining, the dramatic increase in skills makes for a more formidable workforce. Moreover, migration from farms to cities, long a driver of economic growth, has continued. Nearly 64% of the population lived in urban areas last year, up from less than 50% in 2010.
• Summary: As people move in search of opportunities, they are redrawing China’s map. The rust-belt provinces in the north-east lost millions of younger residents over the past decade, while prosperous coastal areas, notably Guangdong and Zhejiang, gained millions. As a whole, China is getting older, more educated and more urban. But that change is not evenly spread. The outside world is understandably focused on the question of when China’s population will peak. Within China, the widening gap between haves and have-nots is just as pressing a concern.

Read more on - Polity | Economy | Schemes | S&T | Environment

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