China's New Demographic Reality: Learning from the 2010 Census

摘要

China carried out its sixth modern population census in 2010. It was a massive operation, mobilizing over 6 million enumerators to visit more than 400 million households, recording a total of 1.34 billion people. Enough census data are available to provide a panoramic view of the country's demographic situation in the first decade of the twenty-first century. That is my aim in this article.In brief, the census confirms that China has firmly entered the era of demographic modernity and depicts the continuing vast transformation the country is undergoing in its regional and rural-urban distribution. China's population has grown since the last census (2000) at an annual average rate of 5.7 per 1000, down from 11.0 in 1990-2000 and 14.4 in 1980-90.1 Life expectancy has improved by 3-4 years during the decade to levels around 74 and 77 years for males and females. Fertility remains well belowreplacement level—probably as low as 1.5 births per woman—and there is still a significantly elevated sex ratio at birth. Low fertility and falling old-age mortality make for continued and rapid population aging, with proportions aged 60 and over rising 3 percentage points in the decade to 13 percent in 2010. Internal migration maintains its pattern of strongly favoring major coastal regions and to a lesser degree the far west. Shanghai and Beijing grew by some 40 percent over the decade. In contrast, a number of inland provinces, notably Sichuan, Hubei, and Chongqing, have recorded actual population decline—a trend likely to persist and perhaps extend to other provinces. And China has reached an overall urban proportion of 50 percent.