UN Projections: China’s Population to Decrease Significantly by 2075

Overview

What we’re showing

Population data and forecasts for the world’s 6 largest countries. This data comes from the UN World Population Prospects 2022 (latest version).

Projections are based on a medium fertility scenario, which assumes countries will converge at a birth rate of 1.85 children per woman, by 2045-2050.

China’s decline

China’s population boom has officially come to an end, with the country reporting two consecutive years of decreases (down 850K in 2022, and 2.1M in 2023).

The country’s population in 2050 is forecasted to be 1.32B, which is roughly the same as it was in 2007. We can also see that the UN believes this downtrend will accelerate as we enter the second half of the century.

India still has plenty of steam…for now

The UN believes that India’s population will peak somewhere in the mid 2060s, just shy of the 1.7B mark.

Whether these predictions come true will largely depend on how quickly birth rates fall as the country becomes more developed. For example, India’s fertility fell from 6.2 in 1950, to 2 in 2021 (births per woman).

Year	China	India	U.S.	Indonesia	Pakistan	Nigeria
1970	811,787,180	551,305,740	198,984,270	113,677,350	58,466,090	54,944,570
1980	975,157,400	688,874,650	221,787,430	146,425,970	78,826,070	71,827,860
1990	1,143,766,990	861,204,740	246,365,640	180,569,110	113,528,320	93,963,390
2000	1,259,610,160	1,050,011,750	280,816,630	212,544,100	151,822,490	121,235,490
2010	1,343,697,580	1,232,085,390	309,884,060	242,498,530	192,284,410	158,733,200
2020	1,423,998,020	1,389,966,390	335,388,240	270,825,850	225,112,860	205,780,600
2030	1,416,865,530	1,509,296,260	351,334,470	291,204,030	271,601,630	259,717,120
2040	1,380,019,760	1,607,764,160	366,038,730	307,521,830	320,225,830	317,869,980
2050	1,316,945,670	1,668,474,590	375,084,700	316,967,960	365,677,840	374,711,410
2060	1,211,118,960	1,694,786,430	380,584,280	319,427,660	405,828,430	426,524,170
2070	1,091,007,010	1,691,267,120	386,523,370	317,878,920	438,979,810	471,926,430
2075	1,034,617,140	1,677,813,540	389,170,960	316,041,790	452,093,570	491,186,600

Source

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