China will have declining population around 2028: report

A new report predicts that China will see a population decline around 2028, the Beijing Youth Daily reported Friday.

A scenic spot in Chengdu, Sichuan Province is flooded with people on October 3, 2018. [File photo: IC]

Since 2010, the number of Chinese people age 65 and above has increased by 83.2 million, with an average annual growth of 2.08 million. However, the population under the age of 15 has decreased by 90.17 million, with an average reduction of 2.25 million per year, said the report released Thursday by the Institute of Population and Labor Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

China is aging rapidly. Its aging population has increased from 3.76 percent to 8.40 percent since 2010, and the country's total population will begin to show a negative growth around 2028, according to the report.

However, data shows that the number of newborn second children has risen significantly in 2016 and 2017, accounting for 51.2 percent of all newborns. A total of 8.83 million babies born in 2017 have an older sibling, an increase of 1.62 million, or 11 percentage points from 2016.

The report also said that China would have a shrinking labor population. In 2017, the country's working-age population (16 to 64) has declined by 5.78 million.

The negative growth of the labor force will bring structural changes to the supply-demand relationship of the labor market and put forward urgent requirements for the reform of related systems, said the report.