China's population crept past 1.4 billion last year for the first time, even as the birthrate continues to fall

The National Bureau of Statistics said the population on the Chinese mainland reached 1.40005 billion at the end of 2019, with another overall gain of 4.67 million people.

That marked the third consecutive year when overall numbers of births dropped.

China's working age population, those between 16 and 59 years old, also declined by 890,000 from 2018 to 896.4 million, while the number of people aged 60 or older grew by 4.39 million, making up 18.1% of the total population.