China 2020 Census Shows Slowest Population Growth

China’s population growth in the decade to 2020 slumped to the least in official records dating back to the 1950s, fueling pressure on Beijing to ramp up incentives to couples to have more children.

The 2020 results of the country’s once-a-decade census, published on Tuesday, showed the population of mainland China increased 5.38% to 1.41 billion.

This comes following slowed growth ever since a one-child policy was introduced in the late 1970s,

That compared with an increase of 5.84% to 1.34 billion in the 2010 census, and double-digit percentage rises in all of China’s previous six official population surveys dating back to 1953.

The number meant China narrowly missed a target it set in 2016 to boost its population to about 1.42 billion by 2020. In 2016, China replaced its one-child with a two-child limit.

In recent months, China’s state media has been increasingly bleak on the outlook, saying the population may start to shrink in the next few years.

Meanwhile the United Nations predicts the number of people living in mainland China will peak in 2030 before declining.

But in late April, the Financial Times newspaper said the population actually fell in 2020 from a year earlier, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

China has long worried about its population growth as it seeks to bolster its economic rise and boost prosperity.