Spatiotemporal Evolution and Influencing Factors of Population Growth Transition in China during the COVID-19 Pandemic

At present, China has lost its demographic dividend. Meanwhile, in the face of the twin challenges of rising living costs and the uneven distribution of educational resources, the fertility intentions of ordinary people are rapidly declining. In the background, China’s latest birth incentive policy has not had the desired effect. Especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, these issues have become more complicated, making it more difficult to achieve policy goals. Analysis of changing characteristics and influencing mechanisms in China’s current stage of population growth is therefore significant. Such analysis can help improve China’s population structure and preserve the advantage of human resource endowment. In this paper, we use data from 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 as made available from the resources of China’s National Bureau of Statistics and National Health Commission. These included annual macro statistics, seventh census data, and COVID-19 pandemic data, allowing us to analyze the influencing mechanism of China’s population growth by using the Geographic Detector Model. The research revealed the dependency ratio as the primary factor influencing spatial differentiation of population growth in China, indicating that the dependency burden plays a role in inhibiting population growth. The secondary factor showed different changes in stages. At the same time, any two factors showed more substantial explanatory power after the interaction, meaning the spatial distribution of China’s population growth results from the joint influence of many factors. The strong interaction was mainly concentrated around the dependency ratio and were with women’s political participation and internet coverage. However, under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the explanatory power of traditional factors was diluted, leading to a decline in the strength of interaction.