China shifts from demographic dividend to talent dividend, data shows

China is undergoing a notable economic transition — from its traditional quantity-driven demographic dividend to a high-quality talent dividend, official population data has confirmed.

The National Bureau of Statistics released key results from the 2025 national 1% population sample survey on Friday, outlining shifts in China's population scale, age composition, human capital and urban-rural distribution that are reshaping the country's long-term economic growth trajectory.

The highlight lies in the rapid upgrading of the nation's human capital stock. The data shows that 272 million people — nearly one in five Chinese— now have a university-level education. That's up about 25% from 218 million in 2020, according to China's Seventh National Population Census, reflecting a steady improvement in the overall quality of China's labor force.

"The average years of schooling for China's retiring population is 7–8 years, but for the young labor market entrants it has reached 14 years," said Justin Yifu Lin, former chief economist at the World Bank and dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University, at a recent conference. The net effective labor is still growing because the effective labor added by the new workforce far outweighs the loss from retirees, Lin noted, underpinning a transition from quantity-based demographic dividend to quality-based talent dividend.

Population age structure data further illustrates China's dual demographic landscape of aging pressure and optimized labor quality. People aged 60 and above account for 22.86% of the population in 2025, while those aged 14 and below make up 15.25%. The working-age group (15–59) stands at 869.87 million, or 61.89% of the total, forming a solid foundational labor base for economic operation.

The 2025 population survey also recorded other demographic features. Urban residents make up 67.74% of the population, while the remaining 32.26% live in rural regions. And there are 357 million migrants in the country, signaling vibrant labor mobility.