China

Population growth

Historical records show that as long ago as 800 bce, in the early part of the Zhou dynasty, China was already inhabited by about 13.7 million people. Until the last years of the Xi (Western) Han dynasty, about 2 ce, comparatively accurate and complete registers of population were kept, and the total population in that year was given as 59.6 million. This first Chinese census was intended mainly as a preparatory step toward the levy of a poll tax. Many people, aware that a census might work to their disadvantage, managed to avoid reporting, which explains why for centuries all subsequent population figures were unreliable. In 1712 the Qing emperor Kangxi declared that an increased population would not be subject to tax; population figures thereafter gradually became more accurate.

During the later years of the Bei (Northern) Song dynasty, in the early 12th century, when China was already in the heyday of its economic and cultural development, the total population began to exceed 100 million. Later, uninterrupted and large-scale invasions from the north reduced the country’s population. When national unification returned with the advent of the Ming dynasty, the census was at first strictly conducted. The population of China, according to a registration compiled in 1381, was quite close to the one registered in 2 ce.

From the 15th century onward the population increased steadily, growth being interrupted by wars and natural disasters in the mid-17th century and slowed by the internal strife and foreign invasions in the century that preceded the communist takeover in 1949. During the 18th century China enjoyed a lengthy period of peace and prosperity, characterized by continual territorial expansion and an accelerating population increase. In 1762 China had a population of more than 200 million, and by 1834 that population had doubled. It should be noted that during that period the amount of cultivable land did not increase concomitantly, and land hunger became a growing problem from that time on.

After 1949, sanitation and medical care greatly improved, epidemics were brought under control, and subsequent generations enjoyed progressively better health. Public hygiene also improved, and, as a result, the death rate declined faster than the birth rate, and the population growth rate increased. China’s population reached 1 billion in the early 1980s and had surpassed 1.3 billion early in the 21st century.

The continually growing population has been a major problem for the government. In 1955–58, with the country struggling to obtain an adequate food supply and saddled with a generally low standard of living, the authorities sponsored a major birth-control drive. A second attempt at population control began in 1962, when the main initiatives were programs promoting late marriages and the use of contraceptives. The outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 interrupted this second family-planning drive, but in 1970 a third and much stricter program was initiated. The attempt this time was to make late marriage and family limitation obligatory, and it culminated in 1979 in efforts to implement a policy of one child per family.

Other developments affected the rate of population growth more than the first two official family-planning campaigns, notably the disastrous effects of Chinese leader Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward economic program of 1958–60. The policies of the Great Leap caused a massive famine in China, the death rate surpassed the birth rate, and by 1960 the overall population was declining. By 1963 the country was recovering from the famine, and, even though the second birth-control campaign had already begun, a soaring birth rate produced an annual population growth rate of more than 3 percent, the highest since 1949.

Since 1970, however, when the third family-planning program was launched, state efforts have been much more effective. China’s population growth rate is now among the lowest for a developing country, although, because its population is so huge, annual net population growth is still considerable. About one-sixth of the population is younger than 15 years of age.

China: Age breakdownEncyclopædia Britannica, Inc.