China's population is shrinking and ageing fast, they are gonna have to get it done in the next 20 years or they will be all old fogies

China gonna have to have the 60 to 70 year olds in the army to take over Taiwan!



China has both the world's largest total population and elderly population. The newly released results of China's seventh population census show that China's 2020 population stood at 1.4118 billion in which there are 264 million people aged 60 and over or 191 million aged 65 and over, comprising 18.7 percent and 13.5 percent of the total population, respectively.

Comparing with the previous intercensal period, population aging accelerated in the last decade. The seventh census also suggests the effect of the two-child policy is fading. COVID-19 had also helped to depress fertility to a record low of 1.3, marking the start of the phase of lowest-low fertility in Chinese history.

The share of the older people in China is relatively low when compared with the neighboring countries of Japan and South Korea. However, China will experience very fast aging in the next 20 to 30 years, one of the most rapid in the world. In the context of very low fertility and increasing longevity, China's population aged 60 and over is forecast to increase to nearly 500 million, and those aged 65 and over to 370 million by the middle of the century, roughly 38 and 30 percent of the total population, respectively. China will become a heavily aging country then.

The sheer size of the elderly population and rapidity of aging justify the urgency of actively dealing with the challenge of aging in China that became a national strategy after the fifth plenary session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in October 2020. With the heterogeneity of fertility and aging across China and the huge overall population, the 14th Five-Year Plan Period (2021-2025) is probably the last window of opportunity for preparing to address the challenge.

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