China’s population growing at slowest rate in generations

Census data reveals demographic timebomb, adding pressure on Beijing to boost incentives for couples to have more children

China has reported the slowest population growth since the early 1960s, despite scrapping its one-child policy in 2015 to encourage more births and stave off a looming demographic crisis.

On Tuesday, the Chinese government released the results of its once-a-decade census, saying the overall population of China grew to 1.41178 billion in the 10 years to 2020, up by 5.38%. The increase reflects an average annual rise of 0.53%, down from 0.57% reported from 2000 to 2010.