The number of births has fallen in China for the third consecutive year, according to official statistics published this Friday, which show a progressive aging of the population and an increasingly less proportion of working-age citizens.
The National Statistics Office has estimated the population of the Asian giant at more than 1.4 billion people, representing a growth of more than 4.6 million compared to the 2018 data. The data only takes into account the inhabitants of the mainland of China and excludes residents abroad.
The year 2019 closed with 14.65 million new births, about 580,000 less than the previous year, which confirms a decrease that has failed to alleviate the revision of the historic one-child policy. The Government authorized in 2016 that married couples have two children.
The decrease is also noted in the range corresponding to working age, that is, between 16 and 59 years. Something more than 896 million Chinese people fall within this range, some 890,000 less than in 2018, representing 64 percent of the total population.
On the other hand, the number of citizens with 60 years or more has increased, which already totals 4.39 million people and represents 18.1 percent of all the inhabitants in the continental part of the country.
