We talk a lot about China and its importance to Australia.

China is our largest trading partner and the biggest geopolitical player in our corner of the world.

What happens in China matters to Australia. Let’s learn a bit about the broad demographic changes in China. 

We start with the demographic profile of China. Even knowing something basic like the total population of China is harder than it seems.

In a previous column I explained how some demographers think China might have overcounted its population by tens of million – that overcount narrative is increasingly seen as unlikely and less dramatic by demographers.  

There is no need for dramatic overcount figures as even official data, as reported by the UN Population Division, reveal scary demographic challenges.

First the obvious paragraph about the total population size. China lost its title as the world’s most populated country a few years ago to India.

China has already entered its permanent demographic decline. In only 68 years, the Chinese population will be half the size of today –from 1416 million today to 710 million in 2093.  

In the coming decade alone, China stands to lose about one Argentina worth of people (43 million people). That’s not insignificant, especially once you consider that China shrinks its working age (18-64) population by 50 million.

The cohort under 18 is declining from 271 million people to 176 million people – that’s a loss of 95 million young people in only a decade.

All the while, the 65 plus cohort expands by 102 million. Sure, the non-working age population declines by only 7 million people, but the ageing of China is speeding up.  

This is where we must discuss China’s rightful obsession with “getting rich before getting old”. Think of this as a demographic anxiety to accumulate enough wealth and drive-up productivity before the population ages beyond its economic prime.  

A look at the 80-plus cohort makes it clear just how severe the ageing process really is. Today, 36 million Chinese fall in this age group. In 11 years, the number will have doubled; in 21 years tripled; and in 28 years quadrupled (144 million by 2053 – that’s five Australias of elderly people).

The world has never seen such a large wave of ageing people.  

China is doomed to become richer and richer and richer to look after this gigantic elderly cohort. 

How certain can we be about the demographic decline of China? A look at Chinese babies leaves no doubt – the ageing of the population is guaranteed and the prospect of increasing the working age population through births is equally dire.

In 2025, 8.8 million births are expected – that’s half of the 2018 birth numbers (18.1 million). In the 1960s, China recorded more than 30 million births at some points. 

Because of its gigantic proportions, we know that migration won’t be an option to sufficiently amp up the population size in China. The workforce that will be required to drive economic growth must be home-grown. In absolute terms, China reached peak-workforce in the 2010s. China must learn to do more with less. The national obsession with robotics is a great strategic move. China must turn itself into an innovative and automated society eventually. 

One more graph to drive home the point that workers will be in short supply even as the total number of workers remains in the hundreds of millions.

Let’s see how the working-age population compares to the non-working age cohort (children and retirees).

From the 1980s to the early 2010s, the growing Chinese workforce could easily act as a buffer for the onset of aging.

In 2012, for every 100 Chinese not of working age a total of 218 working age population was available.

The next few years brings a softening of the slow down. As of the 2030s, this ratio will be in freefall. By 2073, there will be one working age person for each non-working age person. 

If the Chinese economic model stops delivering growing prosperity, the CCP is in deep trouble. You can rest assured that everything will be done to keep economic growth happening.

From war, to dodgy accounting tricks, to fantastic new technologies, all will be considered to keep growth going. 

In a gigantic country like China, revolutions can easily evolve out of small political or economic discontent. 

For decades, rapid economic growth in China was driven by an abundant workforce and growing consumer markets around the world buying Chinese products.

Now, that same cohort is moving into middle age, and the number of retirees is ballooning to 315 million people by 2035. Look at the cohort aged roughly 50 to 65 in 2025 in the above chart – that’s the Cultural Revolution Generation (born roughly between 1960 and 1975) who came of age when China began to open under Deng Xiaoping.

They are considered a hardworking and pragmatic (mostly apolitical) generation driven by social mobility – they worked their butts off to become richer. China’s hardest-working and biggest generation is set to leave the workforce in the next decade and a half.  

The Cultural Revolution generation in China, much like the older baby boomers in Australia, worked hard with the understanding that they will get to enjoy their hard-earned wealth in retirement.

The Chinese government can’t afford mass discontent among this large cohort. GDP growth better remain high. Even the CCP can’t afford to have the biggest generation actively working against it. 

Since with every year fewer workers support more pensioners and patients, the government might be tempted to ask more of the shrinking worker pool.  

The big spike around the ages of 30 and 40 belongs to the One-Child Generation (born roughly between 1985 and 1995). They were raised in comfort amid economic boom times. Their parents wanted them to succeed academically and financially.

Considered a materialistic cohort, they might react particularly angrily to economic slowdowns. In about two decades this large cohort of single children will be expected to look after their aging parents. 

This brings us to China’s famous 4-2-1 family structure – four grandparents, two parents, one child. It perfectly sums up the demographic bind the country faces.

Born of the one-child policy, it created a generation of only children who must one day support two ageing parents and four grandparents, all while raising their own family and keeping a career afloat.

What began as a population-control triumph has become an economic and social headache – a shrinking base of workers carrying an ever-heavier pyramid of dependants.

The “4-2-1” ratio isn’t just a family model – it’s a warning label for the world’s fastest-ageing superpower.  

Economic growth is needed to keep the peace: Nothing screams revolution more than a large number of dissatisfied people.  

China knows that a wealthy society can afford the care, healthcare, and dignity that a greying population demands but a middle-income society cannot.  

China’s social contract is brutally simple – as long as people keep getting richer, the Communist Party keeps its legitimacy. But as the workforce shrinks and the population greys, that bargain becomes harder to sustain.

A recession in China wouldn’t just shake markets but could shake the nation itself. For a country built on the promise of growth, slowing down before growing old is the one outcome it cannot afford. 

For Australia, an ageing China means fewer workers, less consumption, and a partner more focused on internal stability than global trade. 

Simon Kuestenmacher is a co-founder of The Demographics Group. His columns, media commentary and public speaking focus on current socio-demographic trends and how these impact Australia. His podcast, Demographics Decoded, explores the world through the demographic lens. Follow Simon on Twitter (X), Facebook, or LinkedIn.