Country record
Born in China: the life the odds give you
The chance of being born in China is 1 in 15 — 6.737% of the 132.1 million babies born worldwide in 2023.
Formula: 8,899,881 births in China in 2023 ÷ 132,110,261 births worldwide in 2023
UN World Population Prospects 2024, medium variant
Life expectancy and survival
A child born in China in 2023 could expect 78.0 years. The world figure that year was 70.3.
Female born in China in 2023: 80.9 years. Male born in China in 2023: 75.2 years. +7.7 years compared with the world figure.
Where the deaths fall
Of 1,000 babies born in China in 2023, this many have died by each age.
- Median age at death
- 81.2
- Share reaching 65
- 8,601.0%
Survive to 20 here, and your chance of reaching 65 is 87.0%.
Formula: l(65) ÷ l(20)
| Age | Deaths per 1,000 born, by age band |
|---|---|
| 0–1 | 5.1 / 1,000 |
| 1–5 | 2.1 / 1,000 |
| 5–15 | 2.5 / 1,000 |
| 15–50 | 34.8 / 1,000 |
| 50–65 | 95.4 / 1,000 |
| 65–80 | 319.3 / 1,000 |
| 80–100 | 536.2 / 1,000 |
How the 1 in 15 is calculated
Two published numbers, one division.
| Value | Year |
|---|---|
| Births in China, 2023 | 8,899,881 |
| Births worldwide, 2023 | 132,110,261 |
| Share of world births | 6.7367% |
| The odds | 1 in 15 |
Why this differs from numbers you may have seen elsewhere
Two things change the answer: which year you use, and whether the denominator is births or people alive. We use births in the same year as the numerator, over all 237 locations the UN publishes. A figure sampled over people alive answers a different question — the odds a living person is from that country — and will always be larger for large countries.
The weights used for sampling sum to 132,110,261 births, so no location is silently excluded.
Childhood
7.2 of every 1,000 children born in China die before their fifth birthday.
- That is about 1 in 139.
- 7.2 / 1,000
- Infant mortality: 5.1 per 1,000 live births.
- 5.1 / 1,000
- Share reaching their 15th birthday: 9,903.0%.
- 9,903.0%
- Total fertility rate
- 1.00
World Bank World Development Indicators, 2023.
The past: 1950 to 2023
Life expectancy in China has moved +34.1 years since 1950, when it was 43.8.
China crossed 70 years of life expectancy in 1995.
Life expectancy at birth
Births per year
Births in China peaked at 33,461,050 in 1963. In 2023 there were 8,899,881.
Play a life born here in 1970Cause of death
Of all deaths recorded in China in 2023, this is how they divide.
| Cause of death | Value |
|---|---|
| Communicable, maternal, perinatal and nutritional | 3.2% |
| Non-communicable | 90.7% |
| Injuries | 6.0% |
World Bank WDI, WHO-origin cause-of-death shares, 2021.
Where China sits
Birth Lottery Index
A girl born in China in 2023 sits at the 91th percentile of the world's life-expectancy distribution, weighting every country by its own births.
Formula: the birth-weighted share of the 237 locations whose female life expectancy is at or below 77.95 years.
- Rank by births: 2 of 237.
- 8,899,881
- Rank by life expectancy: 77 of 237.
- 78.0
- Rank by under-5 mortality: 77 of 237.
- 7.2
Population and migration
- Population
- 1,422,584,933 (2023)
- Median age
- 39.1 years (2023)
- Urban share
- 65.5 % (2023)
- Population density
- 148.2 /km² (2023)
- Net migration
- -567,724 (2023)
Nearby and similar countries
Other locations in Eastern Asia, and one with a similar life expectancy.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the odds of being born in China?
- 15 of being born here. in 2023 — 8,899,881 of the 132,110,261 babies born worldwide that year.
- How long does a child born in China live?
- Life expectancy at birth in 2023 was 78.0 years: 80.9 for girls and 75.2 for boys. That is a population average, not a promise to any individual.
- What is child mortality like in China?
- 7.2 of every 1,000 children die before their fifth birthday, which is about 1 in 139.
- Can I play a life born in China?
- Yes — the button at the top of this page draws a birth in China, and you can choose any year from 1950 to 2023.
- Where does this page's data come from?
- UN World Population Prospects 2024 for births, population, and life tables; World Bank World Development Indicators for income, urbanisation, education, and cause-of-death composition. Every figure names its year.
Data and licence
The figures on this page are derived from the Eighth Billion dataset v1.
Source data is used under its publishers' licences and attributed on every page that displays it.
Play a life born in China
Pick a year between 1950 and 2023, or let it be drawn.
Play a life born in ChinaEighth Billion simulates the odds of a birth. It does not predict any person's life, health, or lifespan.