No matter how you crunch the numbers, China in 2022 is the fastest-aging society in human history. In China the population growth story is over and has been over since China’s birth rate slipped below replacement levels in the 1990s. A full replacement birth rate is 2.1 children per woman. As of early-2022, China’s only partly released 2011–2020 census indicates China’s rate is at most 1.3, among the lowest of any people throughout human history.
