China adds 34m people to population, but greying trend continues, census shows
Growth slowed in past five years, with society now made up of older people and lower proportion of workers
China’s population growth is slowing, with the number of people rising by nearly 34 million in the past five years, the census has found, with the shift towards a greying, urban society continuing to worry experts.
The population sits at 1,373,490,000 people, after rising by 0.5 per cent annually since 2010, down from the 0.57 per cent increase recorded in the decade since 2000, the National Bureau of Statistics announced on Wednesday.
The rise – the slowest in China’s recent history – comes despite the relaxation of family-planning policies in January that allowed all couples to have a second child.
It’s time to lift administrative restrictions on fertility
“China has to worry about the risk of too-low fertility, instead of too-high fertility,” said Zuo Xuejin, a demographics researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. “It’s time to lift administrative restrictions on fertility, allowing child-bearing-age couples to decide by themselves the number of children they want to have.”
The government should do more to encourage couples to have babies, such as providing subsidies to employers who gave maternity leave, Zuo said.