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Meredith Chen

The Communist Party’s membership grew at a slower pace and its average age continued to climb last year, according to official data on the world’s second-biggest political party.
In line with tradition, the data was released on the day before July 1, the date of the party’s founding in 1921.
The party had 101 million members at the end of 2025, an increase of 1 per cent from the previous year, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Central Committee’s Organisation Department, the party’s top personnel office.
That was the slowest growth rate in at least five years. Annual growth has declined every year since 2021, when membership expanded by 3.7 per cent.
According to the report, nearly 30 per cent of members were aged 61 or older – the highest share in at least five years, up from just under 29 per cent in 2024.
The pace of ageing has also picked up. After a brief dip in 2022, the proportion of members over 60 has risen steadily, climbing by 1.43 percentage points between 2023 and 2025 alone.


At the same time, the proportion of members aged 35 and below has fallen, with this cohort making up around 22 per cent of the party in 2025, down from nearly a quarter in 2021.
The trend persists even as the party focuses on recruiting younger people, with more than four in five new members admitted in 2025 being 35 or younger.
The ageing of the party is unfolding alongside a broader demographic crisis across China. The country has a low birth rate and its population has declined for four consecutive years. This also means that the party’s share of China’s population has crept up: members accounted for 7.21 per cent of the population at the end of 2025, up from 6.85 per cent in 2021.
While women and ethnic minority groups remain under-represented, both saw modest gains in 2025, with women now making up 31.5 per cent of the party – up from 30.9 per cent in 2024 – and ethnic minorities 7.8 per cent, up from 7.7 per cent. Ethnic minorities account for just under 9 per cent of the national population.


The party membership is also increasingly well educated, with 59 per cent holding a college degree or higher, up from 57.6 per cent in 2024.
The party also scaled back its internal honours last year, offering accolades to 108,000 grass-roots organisations, down from 175,000 in 2024, and 583,000 “outstanding” members, down from 728,000 a year earlier.
The party’s leadership has enforced a years-long campaign against “formalism” – or excessive bureaucracy – which intensified throughout 2025 and was followed this year by a fresh drive for officials to adopt a “correct view of political performance”, which will conclude at the end of next month.
The Communist Party has long been considered the world’s largest political party by membership, though India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party claimed last September to have surpassed it with 140 million members.
Joining the Communist Party requires endorsement from existing members, background and political reviews, and probationary observation before admission.
Membership is a near-prerequisite for advancement within China’s state institutions and state-owned enterprises, and is increasingly common among managers in big private firms.
Even as members reach their later years, the party continues to monitor them. In 2022, the Communist Party released a set of guidelines on “strengthening party building work for retired officials”, calling for “organising and guiding retired cadres to make new contributions”.


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World’s second-largest political party is ageing, official data shows, with nearly 30 per cent of members aged 61 or older


World’s second-largest political party is ageing, official data shows, with nearly 30 per cent of members aged 61 or older.


China's ageing population

China's population

As China’s Communist Party grows more slowly, its members are getting older

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}World’s second-largest political party is ageing, official data shows, with nearly 30 per cent of members aged 61 or older

World’s second-largest political party is ageing, official data shows, with nearly 30 per cent of members aged 61 or older