China's Communist Party in profile: its make-up by sex, ethnicity, age and profession

This is the seventh in the South China Morning Post's series of explainers about China's Communist Party in the lead-up to the party's centenary in July. Here, Phoebe Zhang breaks down the demographics of the 100-year-old party's membership.

Since the Communist Party of China was founded in 1921, it has grown from about 50 members to almost 92 million by the end of 2019, representing around 6.6 per cent of the total Chinese population.

As the sole governing political party in China, it reaches all aspects of Chinese society, from the government, to the military and schools.

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It has almost 5 million party units or grass-roots organisations across the nation, covering 99 per cent of China's urban subdistricts and rural villages, according to the party's Organisation Department, which is in charge of personnel.

Here is a closer look at the demographic distribution based on the Organisation Department's data for 2019, released last year.

Women remain underrepresented in the party, even though their presence in the ranks has been growing.

In 2019, there were about 25.6 million women members, which is around 27.9 per cent of the total membership of 91.9 million, up from 20.2 million, or 23.7 per cent of the 85.1 million members in 2012.

President Xi Jinping has stressed the importance of women at various events. At a high-level meeting at the United Nations to mark the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in October, he called for efforts to protect women's rights and interests and improve their lives, and to ensure that women's development went hand in hand with economic and social development.

Still, there are almost no women in the party elite, with just one, Sun Chunlan, among the 25-member Politburo - the decision-making body of the party.

Women represent only 25 per cent of 2,953 deputies in the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, and 20.5 per cent of 2,156 members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body.

Members of ethnic minority groups made up around 9 per cent of the country's population in 2020 and their numbers are growing in the party.

In 2012, there were 5.8 million party members from ethnic minority groups, or 6.8 per cent. By 2019, the number had grown to 6.8 million, or 7.4 per cent, according to Organisation Department data. The data does not break down this figure further according to the various ethnic groups.

Before the first session of the NPC in 2018, the government said it would set a soft quota of around 12 per cent for ethnic minorities. It has hit this quota, with ethnic minority delegates making up 14.5 per cent of the legislature, although most are still Han Chinese.

These deputies have raised issues specific to ethnic minorities. For example, at the 2021 Two Sessions, Liu Lei, a member of the Hezhe ethnic group, called on universities to increase their enrolment of ethnic minority students.

Another deputy, Zhong Haiyan, head of Jingning She autonomous county in eastern China's Zhejiang province and a member of the She ethnic group, called for greater support for preschool education in ethnic minority areas.

But there are signs that Beijing's policy towards ethnic minority groups is shifting, along with a rolling back of preferential policies starting from 2019. In 2020, the government appointed a member of the Han majority as the head of the body responsible for ethnic minority affairs, breaking a 66-year-old tradition of having an ethnic minority official fill this role.

Amid an international controversy over the western region of Xinjiang, several prominent former officials from the Uygur ethnic group - the largest in the region - have been accused of separatism, colluding with terrorist groups or corruption.

As the population as a whole has aged, so has the party. In 2019, more than a third of the party's membership - 39.8 per cent - was at least 61 years old.

In 2012, there were 21.8 million members under 35, or 25.6 per cent. In 2019, there were 22.3 million members under 35 - more in absolute numbers but a smaller percentage of the total, at 24.2 per cent.

However, there is still a substantial proportion of young people in the party. As of 2019, more than one-third of the party's members were under 40, with student party members accounting for 2.1 per cent of the total.

In comparison, 13 per cent of Britain's Conservative Party and 18 per cent of its Labour Party were below 40, according to a study by the Economic and Social Research Council-funded Party Members Project, Queen Mary University of London and University of Sussex in 2017.

Xi has emphasised the importance of cultivating a younger generation of future leaders.

"To achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the key to the party, the key to people, ultimately lies in the training of a generation of reliable successors," Xi said in 2018.

From the beginning, the party has marketed itself as the mouthpiece of the proletariat. Its mission was to fight against class distinctions, overthrowing the bourgeoisie through a revolution and collectivisation of production.

Blue-collar workers and farmers, herders and fishermen still make up almost a third of its membership, but their share is shrinking as China becomes a global leader in technology and amid a push by party leaders to cultivate a younger, more highly educated pool of future leaders since the 1980s.

They made up 38.3 per cent of the party's total membership in 2012, but only 34.8 per cent in 2019. Over the same time, the proportion of professional, technical and managerial staff among party members grew from 31.6 per cent in 2012 to 34.4 per cent in 2019.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2021 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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