To control the demographic crisis, China government made the one-child policy back in 2015. After that China has reported t the slowest population growth since the 1950s.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the population of mainland China increased by 72 million to 1.412 billion during the years. The growth rate of 5.38 percent was the lowest in 1953.

The reported slowdown is expected but is a sign China has yet to address the social factors behind fewer people having children, including delayed marriages, high cost of living, and stalled social mobility. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, 12 million babies were officially born in China last year. 

The census also reported the part of citizens aged over 65 grew from 8.9% in 2010 to 13.5%, while the proportion of children grew by 1.35%. The working population remained steady.

Ning Jizhe, the deputy head of the census leading group, acknowledged that “the number of women of childbearing age … was declining, and there is a postponement of childbearing and the rising cost of child-raising,” “All of these are reasons behind the decline on newborns.”

In November 2020 the census takers went to door to door to gather the results between 7 million. For the impact of covid or unaligned birthrates with the government, the release had been delayed more than one month.

“For Chinese authorities, the population is getting increasingly sensitive and when numbers get sensitive as you saw with GDP data, that’s where you see possibilities for data getting massaged, and I think you have to flag that as a potential question,” said Minzner.