China: population by age group 2025| Statista

Population in China from 1990 to 2025, by age group (in millions)

Characteristic	0-14 years	15-64 years	65 years +
2025*	212.76	968.48	223.65
2024*	222.4	965.65	220.23
2023	230.63	962.28	216.76
2022	239.08	962.89	209.78
2021	246.78	965.26	200.56
2020**	252.77	968.71	190.64
2019	236.89	995.52	177.67
2018	237.51	1,000.65	167.24
2017	235.22	1,005.28	159.61
2016	232.52	1,009.43	150.37
2015	228.24	1,009.78	145.24
2014	227.12	1,010.32	139.02
2013	224.23	1,010.41	132.62
2012	224.27	1,007.18	127.77
2011	222.61	1,003.78	122.77
2010	222.59	999.38	118.94
2005	265.04	941.97	100.55
2000	290.12	889.1	88.21
1995	322.18	813.93	75.1
1990	316.59	763.06	63.68

Download

Source

Show detailed source information?

Already a member?

Source

Use Ask Statista Research Service

Release date

February 2026

More information

Region

China

Survey time period

1990 to 2025

Supplementary notes

* Figures partly calculated by Statista.
** 2020 figure based on the results of the Seventh Chinese Population Census published by the National Bureau of Statistics in May 2021. Revised figures for the previous nine years have not been published.

Figures for earlier years have been taken from previous publications.

Citation formats

In 2025, approximately 968.5 million people in China were of working age between 15 and 64 years. This was equal to a 68.9 percent share of the total population. Age groups between 30 and 59 years represented the largest age cohorts in the Chinese population pyramid.

Age demographics in China

The change in China’s age distribution over time displayed in the given statistic illustrates the unfolding of an aging population. As the fertility rate in China declined and life expectancy increased, the only age groups that have been growing over the last three decades were those of old people. In contrast, the number of children decreased gradually between 1995 and 2010 and remained comparatively low thereafter. According to the data provided by the National Bureau of Statistics of China, which has not been revised for years before the 2020 census, the size of the working age population declined in 2014 for the first time and entered a downward trajectory thereafter. This development has extended itself into the total population, which has shrunk in 2022 for the first time in decades.

Future age development

As the fertility rate in China is expected to remain below the reproductive level, the Chinese society will very likely age rapidly. According to UN data, which is based on figures slightly different from the Chinese official numbers, the share of the population above 60 years of age is projected to reach nearly 40 percent in 2050, while the share of children is expected to remain stable. This will lead to an increased burden of the old-age population on the social security system, illustrated by an old-age dependency ratio peaking at nearly 106 percent in 2090. This means that by then, ten working-age adults would have to support nine elderly people.