Population and Density

China is the most populous country in the world, with 1.27627 billion people at the end of 2001, one fifth of the world’s total. This figure does not include the Chinese living in the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, and Taiwan Province.

Moreover, the population density is high, with 133 people per sq km. This population, however, is unevenly distributed. Along the densely populated east coast there are more than 400 people per sq km; in the central areas, over 200; and in the sparsely populated plateaus in the west there are less than 10 people per sq km.

The composition of the population of China:

Composition of Population (%)

Sex male 51.63 / female 48.37

Region cities and towns 36.22 / countryside 63.78

Age below 14 years old 22.89 / 15-64 years old 70.15 / above 65 years old 6.96

Population Increment

When the PRC was founded in 1949, China had a population of 541.67 million. Owing to China’s stable society, rapid production development, improvement of medical and health conditions, insufficient awareness of the importance of population growth control and shortage of experience, the population grew rapidly, reaching 806.71 million in 1969. From the 1970s, China had implemented the policy of population increment control and thus the birth rate began to decrease. By 2000, the annual rate of population growth had decreased to less than 17 per thousand. At present, China basically turned into the type of population reproduction in low birth, death and increase.

In line with the requirements of the Outline of National Economic and Social Development During the Tenth Five-Year Plan period, adopted at the Fourth Session of the Ninth NPC in March 2001, in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005) the average annual natural increase rate of China’s population will not exceed nine per thousand, and the population of 2005 will be controlled to less than 1.33 billion. By 2010 the population of China will not have exceeded 1.4 billion.

Family Planning

Family planning has been pushed forward as one of the basic state policies in China. China’s family planning policy combines government guidance with the voluntaries of the masses. The government guidance includes: the central and local governments make the policies and legislation for controlling the population increment, improving the population quality and improving the population structure and the macro population development plans. Meanwhile, the governments also provide consultations, instructions and technical services concerning reproduction care, contraception and good birth and good rearing. Voluntaries of the masses means that couples at child-bearing age can, with the instruction of the relevant policies and regulations of the state, choose the proper contraception methods according to their ages, health, jobs and financial conditions responsibly and in a planned way.

The basic requirements of family planning are late marriages and late childbearing, so as to have fewer but healthier babies, especially one child per couple. But a flexible family planning policy is adopted for rural people and ethnic minorities; in rural areas, couples may have a second baby in exceptional cases, but must wait several years after the birth of the first child. In areas inhabited by minority peoples, each ethnic group may work out different regulations in accordance with its wish, population, natural resources, economy, culture and customs: In general a couple may have a second baby, or a third child in some places. As for ethnic minorities with extremely small populations, a couple may have as many children as they want.

Since the initiation of the family planning policy, late marriage, late childbearing and fewer but healthier babies have become the accepted norms of most people in China. Meanwhile, family planning has helped Chinese women get rid of the burden of frequent childbearing and the heavy family burden after marriage, thus improving the health of both mothers and children.

China's One-Child Policy

In 1973, after decades of encouragement to have multiple children, the Chinese government told its people that population growth was a danger and that each family should have only one child. Since then, the policy has, for the most part, been stringently enforced throughout the country. Though the policy is not itself written into Chinese law, Chinese officials have said it is mandated by laws governing other aspects of Chinese society.

The official sanction for violating the one-child policy is a fine. However, the People's Republic of China (PRC) government acknowledges that it cannot always control how local officials enforce the policy. Because of regional population quotas, local officials have an incentive to keep the birth rate down. Chinese women have reported being forced to abort a pregnancy or to be sterilized. Men have told of being severely beaten and having to send their wives into hiding to deliver children.

A Chinese national must obtain permission to be married as well as to have a child. Although the PRC government says that ethnic minorities are exempt from the one-child policy, some minorities, such as the Uighurs, allege that they have been brutally forced to comply. Some exemptions exist for men who remarry. In addition, if a first child is handicapped, it may be possible to get permission for a second child, especially if the handicapped child is a girl. In other areas, particularly the more rural regions, payment of a bribe may be sufficient to obtain permission for multiple children.

Without permission, a second child cannot be registered and, therefore, does not legally exist. The child cannot attend school (without payment of bribes) and later will have difficulty obtaining permission to marry, to relocate, and for other life choices requiring the government's permission.

In some areas, particularly cities, the one-child policy is often promoted through incentives, such as extra salary or larger houses for couples who pledge to have just one child. The government generally pays for birth control and abortions (and a woman who has an abortion receives a vacation with pay). Failure to abide by the policy may result in job loss or demotion.

Despite local variations on enforcement of the policy, each local jurisdiction has a family planning office responsible for its implementation. In addition, most large employers have someone on-site to oversee compliance. According to many asylum seekers, if a woman is noticeably pregnant with a second child, peers often try to dissuade her from giving birth. If such pressure does not work, these women say, family planning officials will visit her home to convince her to abort the pregnancy and, voluntarily or otherwise, will escort her to the local hospital or clinic.

Given the longstanding preference for boy babies in China, the one-child policy has made female infanticide common. Baby girls are also abandoned at orphanages and churches.