China does a national census every ten years. It is an event of high global interest because, as a huge market of more than a billion people, any change in China’s population data could cause an incalculable butterfly effect.
A little more than a month ago, on March 15, a spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics said at a conference that the current work on the seventh national census has progressed to the final stage of data review and aggregation.
“We initially intend to hold a conference in early April to announce the results of this census to everyone.”
Guess what the results are?
It’s now late April.
The census results have not been announced as scheduled, and one can’t help but think about it.
In fact, for financial researchers, we have already prepared ourselves psychologically. Below I will show a few predictions in accordance with the established general trend, so let’s take a look.
1 Do not rule out a further decline in the proportion of Han Chinese population
In 1953, the proportion of Han Chinese population in the country was 93.94%.
The proportion rose over the next decade. But since family planning was made a basic state policy in the 1980s, the proportion of Han Chinese population to the national percentage has entered a steady decline.
In 1982, it was 93.32%.
In 1990, it was 91.96%.
In 2000, it was 91.59%.
In 2010 it was 91.51%.
That’s a decrease of 2.43 percentage points compared to more than fifty years ago.
Behind this historic sea change is an asymmetrical fertility policy that has lasted for many years.
For a long time, China’s family planning policy was implemented on the mainland before the frontier, in urban areas before rural areas, and for Han Chinese before ethnic minorities, with a relatively lenient policy for ethnic minorities as opposed to Han Chinese.
In Xinjiang, for example, the family planning policy for ethnic minorities began in 1992, not only 17 years later than that for Han Chinese, but also more lenient than on the mainland – while Han Chinese in urban areas are encouraged to have one child per couple, ethnic minorities can have two children per couple; while Han Chinese in rural areas can have two children, ethnic minorities can have three. In rural areas, Han people can have 2 children, while ethnic minority people can have 3 children.
If you don’t understand the impact of the asymmetric policy, let’s look at a few sets of data.
For the period 2009.11.1-2010.10.31, the percentage of Han Chinese women of childbearing age who had two children was 31.20%, lower than the 32.84% of Yi, 33.28% of Uyghur, 34.06% of Tibetan, and 35.03% of Miao. The proportion of Han Chinese giving birth to three children was 4.82%, less than half of that of Miao, and about one-third of that of Uyghur, Tibetan, and Yi.
Although the birth space for Han Chinese gradually converged with that of ethnic minorities after the full two-child liberalization in 2016, the effect was not significant.
The country’s births then fell by 610,000 to 17.25 million in 2017, another 2 million to 15.23 million in 2018, and another 580,000 to 14.65 million in 2019.
High housing prices and the high cost of medical care and schooling have sapped the enthusiasm of many urbanites to “do something big for the country”.
Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the proportion of Han Chinese population will be further reduced in 2020.
2 The victory of Chengdu and Chongqing under the internal circulation
The seventh census will give the final word on the demographic changes in Sichuan and Chongqing since the 21st century, declaring the triumph and importance of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle in the era of internal circulation.
We will see the size of the population of Sichuan and Chongqing roughly divided into two phases.
2000-2010, a landing trend of negative growth (overall).
2010-2020, a positive growth take-off trend.
(Sichuan’s resident population change over the years tabulated by Huang Tianba)
(Change in resident population in Chongqing over the years tabulated by Huang Tianba)
In the previous decade, Sichuan’s resident population shrank all the way from 82.34 million to 80.41 million, and its share of the country fell from 6.58% to 6%. Chongqing’s resident population also shrank from 2.44% to 2.15% of the country as a whole.
In the latter decade, Sichuan’s resident population stopped falling and rebounded, swelling rapidly from 80.41 million to 83.75 million. Chongqing also rebounded completely and steadily, breaking the record population peak of the 1990s.
Why is this so?
Because after China’s accession to the WTO in 2001, peacocks flew southeast and a large number of people from Sichuan and Chongqing ran to the coast to work, resulting in a loss of local population.
Later, Chongqing historically opened the world’s second Eurasian continental bridge, snatched the crown of the laptop capital from the coast, established a huge electronic information industry as if overnight, and successfully completed the transformation of its traditional heavy industrial base. Chengdu, with its coastal-like business environment, has been a tiger’s mouth, attracting many giants from home and abroad to settle in the city and gradually breaking into the top ten cities in China.
The increasing attractiveness of jobs at home has led to the return of a large number of migrant workers and college graduates to the Sichuan and Chongqing regions. This return flow of population is extremely different from the construction of the third line 60 years ago.
Chengdu and Chongqing are ranked after the Northeast, the Central Plains and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.
3 Guangdong is the biggest winner
From 2010-2020, our urbanization process has entered the era of stock harvesting.
That is to say, a phase where metropolitan areaization and urban contraction coexist. A large part of the mega-city expansion comes from the siphoning off of numerous smaller cities.
According to the original development trend, Beijing and Shanghai would have been running blindfolded toward a population of 30 million, becoming the world’s craziest population harvesting machine.
But a few years ago, this historical torrent was cut off. Since Beijing and Shanghai set a major strategy to reduce development, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have taken over, with population attractiveness rising to the strongest in the country.
Conservative estimates suggest that Guangdong’s resident population growth over the past decade may have exceeded 11 million, more than the second and third places combined. The province’s resident population would also have risen further to more than 8 percent of the country’s share, from 6.83 percent in 2000 and 7.79 percent in 2010.
This also means that for every twelve Chinese people today, one lives in Guangdong. For every 20 Chinese, one lives in the Greater Bay Area. Guangdong is, literally, the biggest winner.
The constant influx of new blood has made the PRD the youngest city cluster in China, bar none. At the same time, the Yangtze River Delta as a whole is plagued by aging.
Data show that in 2015, Guangdong’s population above 65% was about 8.48%, ranking sixth from the bottom in terms of aging among the mainland’s 31 provinces and municipalities. And Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang are fast approaching the moderate aging standard of 14%.
4 Northeast provinces or 1.6 million less
In some places, the population statistics is a “metaphysics”.
Every year, many cities will publish the number of resident population, but it is only an estimate. Only the national census, which is conducted every 10 years, is an accurate figure that is measured from door to door.
Therefore, for some places, the decennial census is like a big test. After all, no one wants to be seen swimming in the nude.
Take the northeast, for example.
Years ago, Jilin Province stopped conducting resident population counts at the prefecture-level city level.
In the entire eastern provinces, it can be said that in addition to a very few cities such as Shenyang, the resident population of other places have basically become a “black box”. The household population is changing year by year, the resident population is just a thousand calls not to come out.
A conservative estimate is that at least one-third of the prefecture-level cities in the Northeast have shrunk in population today. That is, these cities are not only not growing, but getting smaller and smaller.
Due to slow industrial transformation and aging problems, the population of the three northeastern provinces may decrease by as much as 1.6 million people in the decade 2010-2020.
This volume, equivalent to the population of the city of Jingdezhen, Jiangxi.
The next ten years, the great northeast heganization is unstoppable.
5 Shanghai Liaoning is the first to step into the moderate ageing
According to the United Nations, the proportion of population over 65 years old exceeds 7% in a region, indicating that it has entered a lightly aging society. the proportion of population over 65 years old exceeds 14%, indicating that it has entered a moderately aging society.
(Source of data is the statistical bulletin of each region, the red part is the estimated tabulation: dust)
Five years ago, the three youngest provinces and municipalities in mainland China were Tibet, Xinjiang and Ningxia, all of which shared the common feature of being areas where ethnic minorities congregate. Tibet is also the only region in China that has not entered an aging society, with only 5.7% of the population over 65 years old.
The five oldest provinces and municipalities in mainland China are Sichuan, Shanghai, Liaoning, Chongqing and Jiangsu, all of which have over 12.5% of their population over the age of 65. After the recent five-year evolution, these provinces are also the most likely to be the first to step into moderate aging this year.
Population is the basis of all productivity, and the quality of the demographic structure directly affects national fortunes.
Japan’s “lost twenty years” is not about economic problems, but about demographic problems. That’s why Japan calls the irreversible low fertility rate a “national tragedy” and a “chronic death”.
However, a while ago, a number of cities disclosed that the local births in 2020 will drop by 10-30% compared to 2019.
Even Henan and Shandong and other culturally oriented traditional population provinces, now also can not be born.
6 The suspense
There are still many unanswered questions about China’s population figures.
The average number of people per household, for example, was close to 4 in 1990, and in 2010, it slipped to 3.09.
If it falls through 3 in 2020, that would mean that the most typical Chinese family is no longer a family of three. There are many more dinky, one-person families in society than we might think. The traditional family structure has been completely turned upside down. In this way, the design of our furniture, cars, appliances and other products must also change in order to adapt to the new situation.
Another example is whether the number of births in China will fall below 13 million in 2020? If so, it would mean that after the full liberalization of the second child, China’s newborns are still decreasing at an average rate of one million per year.
Another example is whether the resident population in major cities such as Harbin and Changchun has negative growth?
……
The above suspense can only be left to the forthcoming seventh population census to reveal.
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