China's population grows by less than half-a-million in 2021

Beijing: China's population grew by less than half a million-last year to 1.41 billion as the birth rates fell for the fifth consecutive year, stoking fears of a looming demographic crisis and its adverse impact on the world's 2nd largest economy.

At the end of 2021, China's population on the mainland grew to 1.4126 billion from 1.4120 billion in 2020, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.

China's population increased by 480,000 in a year-on-year comparison from 2020 down from 12 million, as per the NBS data. The figure does not include Hong Kong and Macao residents and foreigners who live in the mainland's 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities, the NBS said.

The number of newborns in 2021 in the world's most populous nation stood at 10.62 million, according to the NBS data, with the birth rate at 7.52 per thousand, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The national death rate was 7.18 per thousand last year, putting the national growth rate at 0.34 per thousand.

Experts have warned that a demographic turning point may be just around the corner in the world's most populous nation, and some say it threatens to erode the foundation of China's booming economic growth over the past 40 years, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

In such a situation, the ratio of people in the workforce and dependent persons (retired with pension and other benefits) may be adversely affected, straining the economy, they said. The most shocking part of the data released today is that the natural growth of the population has dropped to 0.34 per thousand, the first time below 1.0 since data became available, Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management said. The demographic challenge is well known, but the speed of population ageing is clearly faster than expected.