China’s mainland population has reached 1.412 billion, an annual growth rate of 5.38 percent since the previous census in 2010, according to the results of the seventh national census released on May 11.

The once-a-decade census has spurred widespread debate on China’s demographic direction.The average number of persons per household fell below 3.0, which indicates the rising prevalence of single-person households across the country.The data also show the number of newborns fell to an alltime low of 12 million in 2020, a drop of 18 percent from the previous year and 33 percent from 2016, when the family planning policy was relaxed to allow urban couples to have a second child.

The results also show that men outnumber women by 34.9 million.“Does that mean 34.9 million men can’t get married?” wondered one commenter on Weibo.