Beijing’sYouthWorkforceShrinksasCityEnforcesStrictResidencyLimits

While cities across China are loosening residency restrictions and engaging in a fierce “war for talent” to combat a rapidly aging society, the capital remains a fortress, strictly enforcing limits on its size while shedding nonessential industries.

China’s central government recently approved the Modern Capital Metropolitan Area Spatial Collaborative Plan (2023-2035). The document reiterates a directive to “strictly guard the upper limit of Beijing’s permanent resident population” and to continue relocating functions away from the city center.

The Beijing Statistical Yearbook 2025 shows the city’s permanent population stood at 21.83 million in 2024, a decrease of 26,000 from the previous year. Under the newly approved plan, Beijing aims to keep its population consistently below the 23 million threshold, a target set a decade ago.

In March 2015, the central government set a control target of capping Beijing’s population at 23 million by 2020, accompanied by a mandated 15% reduction in the population of the six main urban districts. By 2016, this figure was codified as a “red line” constraint in the city’s five-year plan. That year, Beijing’s permanent population peaked at 21.95 million.

To enforce this cap, Beijing has deployed a range of policy tools controlling residency through employment, housing, and schooling regulations. These measures have effectively curbed the growth of the transient population. In 2016, the number of migrant residents in Beijing stopped growing for the first time since 1999. In the decade from 2015 to 2024, the city’s net migrant population fell by 432,000. Some of these “Beijing drifters” left the city, while others obtained local household registration, or hukou, through the city’s points-based system.

Rising bar for residency

Official data show Beijing’s registered hukou population grew by 68,000 to reach 14.38 million in 2024. This growth was driven by migration transfers rather than births; the natural population decreased by 13,800, while administrative transfers added a net 80,400 people. Within that influx, only about 6,000 people engage the points-based residency system annually—a channel where the threshold for success continues to rise.

Beijing launched its points-based residency application in April 2018, offering long-term migrant workers a path to local citizenship. The minimum score required to qualify has climbed steadily from 90.75 in 2018 to 117.33 in 2025. With applicants accumulating more points for basic criteria like social security payments and years of residence, success now hinges on bonus indicators such as working in specific suburban zones or educational background. The intense competition has discouraged many long-time residents; in 2025, the number of applicants fell below 100,000 for the first time, pushing the success rate up to 7.08% from the usual 4% to 5%.

Aside from the points system, Beijing admits non-local graduates through a quota system controlled by city planners. The municipal human resources bureau sets annual quotas based on population targets and major development projects.

The strict population controls have alleviated some of Beijing’s “big city diseases.” According to the city’s 2026 government work report, the proportion of days with good air quality exceeded 80% for the first time in 2025. The annual average concentration of PM2.5 particles dropped to 27 micrograms per cubic meter, a record low. Traffic congestion also eased, with the average peak-hour traffic index falling 4.77% in 2025.

Simultaneously, the relocation of non-capital functions has integrated the labor market across the wider region. The coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei megalopolis has stabilized the area’s total population at over 100 million. A 2025 demographic report notes that the region’s ability to absorb employment remains strong, with talent retention rates higher than those in the Yangtze River Delta or the Greater Bay Area.

Structural challenges

However, the strict headcount cap has created structural pressures. Statistics indicate that Beijing is grappling with a trifecta of challenges: a shrinking employed population, slowing inflows of young workers, and widening labor shortages in low-end service sectors.

Data from the 2025 yearbook shows Beijing’s resident employed population has fallen for five consecutive years, dropping from 11.63 million in 2020 to 11.18 million in 2024.

Research published in 2025 by Zheng Luying and Yu Qian of the Party School of the Beijing Municipal Committee highlights that while the size of the workforce has stabilized after a period of expansion, its share of the total population is declining and sits slightly below the national average. Structurally, the labor market is increasingly dominated by high-skilled sectors such as software, finance, and scientific research, creating a cluster effect for knowledge-intensive industries.

But the workforce is aging rapidly. The proportion of residents under the age of 30 has plummeted. By 2024, those aged 20 to 30 accounted for just 11.4% of the permanent population — nearly half the level seen in 2015.

Wei Jiayu, director of a Beijing-based service center for distressed children who studies migrant populations, attributes the decline in “new youth” to two factors: a sharp drop in the local birth rate and reduced urban appeal pushing away young migrants.

Li Qiang, executive vice president of recruitment platform Zhaopin, noted in an analysis of the regional labor market that while Beijing still leads the nation in talent attraction, its pull is weakening. Talent lost from the capital is primarily moving to other first-tier or strong second-tier cities. Li and others suggest that policymakers need to build mechanisms for talent sharing within the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and improve incentives such as housing subsidies and easier residency access to maintain economic vitality.