China Medical News

China's population growth rate has reached the lowest level in decades, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Jan 21. A total of 15.23 million babies were born last year on the Chinese mainland, a drop by about 2 million from that of 2017, according to data released by the NBS.

The population growth rate dropped from 532 to 381 per 100,000 population from 2017 to 2018, NBS figures show. The rate is the lowest since 1961.  It also marks the second year consecutive decrease since the country relaxed its family planning policy and fully implemented the universal second-child policy.

China adopted the universal second-child policy at the beginning of 2016, allowing all couples to have two children, to counter problems such as ageing and dwindling workforce. After the number of birth reached 17.86 million that year, the highest since 2000, the number of birth fell to 17.23 million in 2017.

Latest NBS figures also show that the total population on the Chinese mainland reached 1.395 billion, an increase of 5.3 million year-on-year. The number of people at 60 years old or above exceeded 249 million, accounting for 17.9% of the total population, according to the bureau. (Source: China Daily)