China's population has entered a zero-growth period, Chinese demographers said, as the number of newborns in the Chinese mainland dropped to 10.62 million in 2021, close to the number of deaths, but they noted China is developing from quantitative growth in the workforce to quality growth as record-high new graduates every year will improve the country's population quality as well as benefit the high-tech development.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday, population of the Chinese mainland at the end of 2021 was 14.13 billion, a slight increase of 480,000 from the end of 2020.
The number of newborns in Chinese mainland dropped to 10.62 million in 2021, down from 12 million in 2020 and marking a drop for the fifth consecutive year. The number of deaths recorded in 2021 was 10.14 million. 
Ning Jizhe, head of the NBS, said at Monday's press conference that the decline of newborns was mainly caused by the continued decrease in number of women of childbearing age, as 2021 has seen about 5 million fewer women of childbearing age between 15 and 49 than in the previous year. Other factors included delaying marriage and births due to fertility concept of couples and the pandemic, Ning said.
But China's population will remain above 1.4 billion for some time to come and will maintain a certain level of growth considering the total population of women of childbearing age which was above 300 million, he said, noting that the third-child policy will gradually prove its effect on improving the number of newborns.
Source:globaltimes
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