Population and sustainable development in China: Population and household scenarios for two regions

China's notoriously bulging population has challenged the government's and the land's ability to provide sufficient food, employment, housing, education, and the like. The Chinese environment and resources have been further fatigued by rapid economic development and modernisation. This precarious situation has attracted world-wide concern and the extensive attention of research scholars, policy-makers, and the general public.
This study focuses on two regions of China, Shenzhen and Taihe, which are representative of developed and underdeveloped regions. It inspects the historical patterns in the relationships between, on the one hand, socio-economic development, urbanisation, and population policies, and population and household dynamics, on the other hand, in a regional systemic theoretical framework. Employing the macro-dynamic ProFamy model, size and composition of population and households in the ensuing 50 years are projected for the two study regions. On the basis of our projection results, we discuss the ongoing impacts of population and household dynamics on sustainable socio-economic and environmental development across the regions.