(TibetanReview.net, Jan19’26) – Despite a slew of socio-economic measures over the past one decade directed at encouraging the youth to marry and have children, and the married to have more children, China’s birth count plummeted to a record low last year, falling by about 10 million from its 2016 peak, reported major international news agencies and outlets, citing data released by the National Bureau of Statistics today. China’s economy was also seen to have grown at one of the slowest rates in decades last year. despite a record 1.89 trillion USD trade surplus last year in the face of Trump tariffs.
China’s population shrank for a fourth consecutive year, dealing a blow to its economic growth prospects. The total population fell by 3.39 million in 2025 to 1.4049 billion from 1.4083 billion a year earlier, the bureau has said. By sheer numbers, that marked the steepest annual population decline on record, apart from during China’s devastating famine from 1959 to 1961, noted the scmp.com.
Only 7.92 million babies were born in 2025, down 17% from 9.54 million in 2024. On the other hand, about 11.31 million people died last year – one of the highest totals in five decades, the report noted.
“The pace of the decline is striking, particularly in the absence of major shocks,” Su Yue, principal economist for China at the Economist Intelligence Unit, has said.
According to her, a reluctance among young people to get married, along with rising economic pressures – particularly an increase for women in the perceived cost of stepping away from employment – have served as major birth deterrents.
Yuan Xin, vice-president of the China Population Association and a professor of demography at Nankai University in Tianjin, has pointed to a correlation between the decline in births last year and the sharp drop in marriages in 2024, noting that marriage registrations typically serve as a leading indicator of birth trends in the following year.
Like many other countries in Asia, China has faced a declining fertility rate, or the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime. While the government does not regularly publish a fertility rate, last saying it was 1.3 in 2020, experts have estimated it is now around 1. Both figures are far below the 2.1 rate that would maintain the size of China’s population, noted the AP.
After decades of a policy barring people from having more than one baby, introduced in 1979, the government raised the limit to two children in 2015. Facing demographic pressure, the government further revised the limit to three kids in 2021.
But due to limited success, the government began offering incentives to families to have more children. In July, the government announced cash subsidies of 3600 yuan (US$500) per child to families while beginning to tax birth-control products like condom. To further promote child-rearing, kindergartens and daycares have been added to the tax-exemption list, along with matchmaking services, the report noted.
China also began to gradually raise the country’s retirement age over a 15-year period from Jan 2025, amid growing concerns that a rapidly ageing population could constrain the nation’s economic expansion, noted mainichi.jp/english.
In the coming year, the country may see a slight temporary increase in births, Reuters cited demographers as saying, after China in May 2025 started allowing couples to get married anywhere in the country – instead of their place of residence – making the process easier.
“In the early stages of population decline, fluctuations [in births] are common before the trend stabilises,” Yuan, with the China Population Association, has said. “But despite short-term volatility, a return to positive growth is almost off the table.”
Meanwhile, China’s economy grew at one of the slowest rates in decades last year, reported the AFP Jan 19, citing official data released that day, as officials struggle to overcome persistently low consumer spending and a debt crisis in the country’s property sector.
While the five percent expansion was in line with Beijing’s annual target – a low-ball figure that analysts have likened to a political comfort blanket – observers warned it was driven largely by exports and masked weak sentiment on the ground, the report said.
And in a sign of the work ahead for leaders, the data also showed a significant slowdown in the last quarter of the year, growing at 4.5% as expected, the report said.