China’s population falls again as birthrate drops 17% to record low | China

China’s population fell for the fourth consecutive year in 2025 as the birth rate fell to record lows despite the implementation of policies aimed at encouraging people to have children.

Registered births will fall to 7.92 million in 2025 (5.63 for every 1,000 members of the population), a 17% drop from 9.54 million in 2024, the lowest since records began in 1949.

According to figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the population decreased by 3.39 million to 1.405 billion, with a faster decline compared to 2024, while the number of deaths increased from 10.93 million to 11.31 million in 2024.

Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said births in 2025 are “about the same level as births in 1738, when China’s population was only 150 million.”

The decline comes despite Beijing’s policies aimed at boosting the birth rate, which has been weakening for years. This year the government allocated 90bn yuan (£9.65bn) to its first nationwide childcare subsidy program for children under three. It is also planned to expand national health insurance to cover all birth-related expenses, including in vitro fertilization treatment.

However, young people still think it is too expensive to have children, especially at a time when unemployment is high and economic growth is slowing down. “Given the current environment, it’s a miracle that anyone is willing to have children,” one Weibo user wrote.

The average cost of raising a child up to age 18 in China is 538,000 yuan; That’s more than 6.3 times GDP per capita, compared to 4.11 times in the United States or 4.26 times in Japan, according to a think tank for Chinese population research. In Chinese cities the cost is even higher.

Decades of a one-child policy mean that the current generation of adults of childbearing age has been socially conditioned to prefer one-child families. The effects of the policy, which was repealed in 2017, mean that the pool of people of childbearing age is shrinking as China’s population ages rapidly.

This year, China also removed condoms from its list of VAT-exempt products; This means a 13% tax rate will be applied to condoms, raising concerns that the government is trying to make it harder to prevent pregnancy. Free birth control methods are still available through government-funded programs. However, many internet users in China predicted that the birth rate would continue to decline in the future.

The death rate of 8.04 per 1,000 people in China in 2025 was the highest rate since 1968. The population has been declining and aging rapidly since 2022, complicating Beijing’s plan to boost domestic consumption and rein in debt.

According to NBS data, people over the age of 60 constitute approximately 23% of the total population. By 2035, the number of people over 60 is predicted to reach 400 million – roughly equal to the combined populations of the US and Italy – meaning hundreds of millions of people are likely to leave the workforce at a time when retirement budgets are already strained.

China has already raised the retirement age; Men are now expected to work until the age of 63 instead of 60, and women are expected to work until the age of 58 instead of 55.

Marriages in China reduced by a fifth in 2024; The number of registered couples increased from 7.68 million to over 6.1 million in 2023. Marriages are often a leading indicator of birth rates in China.

Demographers say a decision in May 2025 allowing couples to marry anywhere in the country rather than just where they reside could lead to a temporary surge in births.

The number of marriages rose 22.5% year-on-year to 1.61 million in the third quarter of 2025, putting China on track to halt almost a decade of annual decline. All data for 2025 will be published later this year.

Authorities are also trying to promote “positive views on marriage and childbearing” to counteract the long-term effects of the one-child policy, which was in effect from 1980 to 2015 and helped reduce poverty but reshaped Chinese society.

Population movement has further compounded the demographic challenge, with large numbers of people moving from rural areas to cities where it is more expensive to raise children. China’s urbanization rate increased from 43% in 2005 to 68% in 2025.

Policymakers have made population planning an important part of the country’s economic strategy. Beijing faces potential costs of around 180bn yuan ($25.8bn/£19.3bn) of boosting births this year, Reuters estimates.

Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of nationalist tabloid Global Times, wrote on Weibo that provincial leaders should be judged by the birth rates and GDP performance of their regions. “When this indicator is included, the interest transferred from the government to society will experience a qualitative leap,” Hu wrote.

China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, with approximately one birth for every woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. Other East Asian countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore have similarly low fertility levels; approximately 1.1 births per woman.

China’s pool of women of reproductive age, defined by the UN as women aged 15 to 49, is predicted to shrink by more than two-thirds to less than 100 million by the end of the century.

Additional research by Lillian Yang. Reuters contributed to this report