China’s population to peak in 2023, five years earlier than official estimates, new research shows

Findings suggest Beijing waited too long to abandon the one-child policy, founder of one of the firms behind the report says

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New research suggests that China’s population will hit a high of 1.41 billion people in 2023. Photo: Xinhua

Finbarr Berminghamin Brussels

Published: 12:15am, 2 May 2019Updated: 11:27pm, 2 May 2019

China’s population will peak in 2023, five years earlier than official forecasts, according to a new report.

Tony Nash, CEO and founder of Complete Intelligence, one of the co-authors of the report, said the findings should be a cause for concern for Beijing’s policymakers, who waited too long to lift the controversial one-child policy for its rapidly greying society.

China abandoned the policy in 2015 to allow couples to have two children. But the birth rate last year fell to its lowest since 1961, indicating that most, if not all, of those parents who wished to have a second child already had done so, the study found.

“At a macro level, it means China’s peak population moves forward from 2028 to 2023, when the population hits 1.41 billion persons,” the report, co-authored by Global Demographics, said.

The report said a major driver in the falling birth rate was the decline in the number of women of child-bearing age, with the population of those women – aged between 15 and 49 – expected to decrease by 56 million between 2018 and 2033.