China population now over 1.4 billion as birthrate falls

A group of children in costume wait to perform at Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, on Friday. China’s population crept past 1.4 billion in 2019 for the first time, even as the birthrate continues to fall. (AP)

BEIJING — China’s population crept past 1.4 billion last year for the first time, even as the birthrate continues to fall.

The National Bureau of Statistics said Friday the population on the Chinese mainland reached 1.40005 billion at the end of 2019, with another overall gain of 4.67 million people.

That marked the third consecutive year when overall number of births dropped.

China’s working age population, those between 16 and 59 years old, also declined by 890,000 from 2018 to 896.4 million, while the number of people aged 60 or older grew by 4.39 million, making up 18.1 percent of the total population.

China abandoned its long-standing one-child policy in 2016 in hopes of reversing what some have called a coming demographic tsunami in which China will grow old before reaching its development targets. But the policy allowing urban couples to have a second child has shown little success amid a dearth of incentives and rising costs for housing, food, health care and education.