One in every 15 babies born in the world today is born in China. China has about 9,000,000 births a year, around 6.8% of all births worldwide.

Births per year
9,000,000
Share of world births
6.8%
Birth odds
1/15
Life expectancy
78 years
Risk of dying before age 5
0.7%
Income per person, PPP
$22,000
Children per woman
1.0
Urban population
65%

Life expectancy in China is 78 years, which is 5 years longer than the world average.

Of every 1,000 babies born here, about 7 do not reach their fifth birthday. The world average is 37 per 1,000.

Income per person is about $22,000 in purchasing power. That is only 96% of the world average.

On average a woman has 1.0 children in her lifetime. The world average is 2.3.

About 65% of the population lives in cities. A baby born here has roughly a 35% chance of being born in the countryside.

Born in China: from famine to the lowest fertility

China's life expectancy fell to a very low level during the great famine of 1959 to 1961 and then climbed to the 60s in the 1970s. Today it is 78. The spread of basic health care, vaccines, better nutrition and a quick multiplication of income per person drove the rise. Fertility was above five children per woman in the early 1970s. The one-child policy of 1980 and rapid urbanization brought it down to about 1.0 today. The policy was relaxed to allow two children in 2016 and three in 2021, yet births kept falling.

The gap between the coastal cities and the interior is large. In cities such as Shanghai and Beijing life expectancy is clearly above the national average, while it lags in rural and western provinces. Because the number of births each year is far below what it was a few decades ago, the country's population has begun to shrink. The household registration system made it harder for a time for the children of families who moved from the countryside to the city to get schooling and health care there.

Religious makeup

  • No religion52%
  • Folk beliefs22%
  • Buddhism18%
  • Christianity5%
  • Islam2%

Sample names given to people born in this country in the game

Wei · Hao · Jun · Lei · Mei · Xinyi · Lan · Yutong

What would your life look like if you were reborn in China?

Roll the dice. Country, family and luck are drawn from real birth data. Live a whole life in about an hour, year by year, and share the result.

🎲 Roll the dice

Countries with a similar number of births

Birth odds for every country →

Values are rounded approximations. Sources: UN World Population Prospects 2024, World Bank WDI, Pew Research Center 2020.