Births − Deaths = Natural Change
Natural change is the balance between births and deaths, before migration. It is one of three forces — alongside fertility and migration — that move a population.
When births exceed deaths, a population grows naturally. When deaths exceed births, it contracts. This balance is independent of migration: a country can record natural decline while its total population still grows through immigration, or natural growth while losing people to emigration. Mixing migration into natural change obscures both forces.
The crude rate of natural increase — births minus deaths per 1,000 people — lets us compare countries of very different sizes. A negative rate means deaths now outnumber births within the year.
National Bureau of Statistics of China
Source: https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/
End-2025 population 1,404.89M; births 7.92M; deaths 11.31M; natural growth -2.41 per thousand; age 60+ 23.0%; age 65+ 15.9%
Largest natural increase / decrease
Country-level rankings of the largest annual natural increase and decrease will be added with the next national-vital-statistics data import. China's 2025 communiqué already records a natural growth of −2.41 per thousand — a national example of deaths exceeding births.