China Population

China Population

China population according to the 2002 census is around 2.2 billion people. The Republic of China has 20 percent of the world's population making it the world's most populous country. History reveals that after 1949 the Communist victory over Nationalist brought about a collective economic system that had little enterprise and only after 1976 economic reforms brought privatization. The population growth between mid 19th to mid 20th century grew slowly from 400 million to 583 million as shown by the 1953 census. But the Communist government with its universal health care system reduced the death rate in China as a result the population has doubled in the last 50 years.

There are 5 provinces in China with a population over 50 million (2001) and all of China's 4 municipalities has population over 10 million. (2001). But the China population growth reduced from 1990 to 2000 (1. 07%) and in 2001 it was as low as 0.88 percent. Even though successive control of birth rate and death rate the birth rate exceeds death by 9 million. This is because of the large number of women are in their child bearing age. The urban population of China increased from 21 percent to 26 percent and 36 percent of the population lived in cities (1982- 1990).

China population is unevenly distributed as 95 percent of the population lives in the southeastern half of the country. The effort by the government to encourage movement to northeastern region and Tibet has led to ethnic conflicts between the non-Hans and the Hans. The demographic composition of China population reveals that 92 percent of the population comprises of the ethnic Hans. The other groups are the Zhuang, Manchu, Moslem Hui, Miao Uigur, Mongolian and Tibetan.

In order to restrict the growth of China population the government implemented one child policy in 1979. The policy stood for fines on unauthorized children, raised minimum marriage age, IUD insertion, abortion and sterilization. But this one child policy led to more preference for sons and thereby leading to imbalance in the sex ratio.

In 2001 The People's Congress approved and reinforced the one child norm but with some variations. The rural couples whose first child is female are allowed to have second child. There are incentives to those who do not violate while punishments for those who have a second child.

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