Efforts urged for population development

Premier Li Qiang presided over an executive meeting of the State Council, China's Cabinet, on Friday with a key focus on coordinating population development and socioeconomic progress, as the country adapts to deepening demographic shifts.

The meeting stressed that population is a fundamental factor in economic and social development, calling for better alignment between population and the broader economic, social, resource and environmental context — a policy vision in line with the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), which emphasizes that high-quality population development underpins Chinese modernization.

It called for further improvements to relevant policies and sustained efforts to build on and unlock China's comprehensive demographic dividend, so that high-quality population development can better support high-quality economic and social development.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China's population stood at 1.4 billion at the end of 2025, a decrease of 3.39 million from the previous year. The population aged 60 and above reached 323 million, or 23 percent of the total, while the urbanization rate rose to 67.89 percent.

The meeting stressed the need to place greater emphasis on all-around human development and improve people's scientific and cultural literacy, vocational skills, and physical and mental health.

Efforts should be made to accelerate the establishment of a lifelong learning system for all, expand skills training, strengthen coordination between education, training and industrial development, and promote full and high-quality employment, it added.

It also called for tailored guidance on population development across different regions, emphasizing orderly population movement between urban and rural areas, and steady progress toward equal access to basic public services.

The meeting said that infrastructure planning should be optimized in light of population distribution, and that public service resources should be dynamically adjusted in response to changes in the resident population. It also underscored the need to accelerate the development of a birth-friendly society.

Measures should be taken to continuously improve policies covering marriage, childbirth, child-rearing and education, and optimize fiscal, tax, social security and housing support for families, in a bid to stabilize the number of newborns, it added.

Over the next five years, China will continue to refine its birth-support policies and vigorously promote high-quality population development, according to Lei Haichao, minister of the National Health Commission.

Although annual births have declined in recent years, they still remain at a level of around 8 million, Lei said at a news conference last month, outlining the health sector's priorities for the 15th Five-Year Plan period.

He said that very few countries maintain such a birth volume, which means China will still have abundant labor resources going forward.