China’s population shrinks to historic low as demographic slide continues

China’s population shrank for the fourth consecutive year as birth rates in 2025 fell by about 10 million from a decade earlier, a trend widely blamed on the long-term effects of the former one-child policy.

According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday only 7.92 million babies were born in 2025 compared to 9.54 million in 2024, a decline of 17 per cent.This marked the lowest birth figure since records began in 1949 and broke the previous lowest record set in 2023, the year India overtook China as the most populous country, according to a United Nations report.

Based on the current fertility rates in China, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) estimated in 2024 that China’s population would decline to 633 million by 2100.

As per NBS data released on Monday, China’s total population fell by 3.39 million in 2025 to 1.4049 billion from 1.4083 billion a year earlier.

Also, China is currently grappling with a rapidly ageing population. According to the official data at the end of 2024, the number of people aged 60 and above in China had hit 310 million. By 2035, this demographic is projected to exceed 400 million.

By sheer numbers last year marked the steepest annual population decline on record, apart from during China’s devastating famine from 1959 to 1961, the Hong Kong based South China Morning Post reported.Meanwhile, about 11.31 million people died last year – one of the highest totals in five decades.China’s serious demographic crisis is blamed on the decades-old one-child policy followed by the ruling Communist Party.

Amid warnings that the demographic crisis will seriously impact the economy, China scrapped the one child policy in 2016 and permitted all couples to have two children. As it failed to make an impact, China revised the population policy in 2021, allowing people to have three children in an attempt to address the reluctance of couples to have more kids due to mounting costs.

In the last few years China has implemented policies to boost the birth rates which included the national childcare subsidy scheme offering up to 10,800 RMB (USD 1,534) per year for each child.

Beijing also increased the condom tax to encourage couples to have more children. The pace of the decline of population in China is striking, particularly in the absence of major shocks, Su Yue, principal economist for China at the Economist Intelligence Unit.The 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 – served as major birth deterrents, she told the Post.

“The data should serve as a strong signal for policymakers to place greater emphasis on domestic structural reforms,” she noted, calling for a more forceful policy response on fertility in the face of a shrinking population and the risk of a smaller consumer base in the future.Yuan Xin, vice-president of the China Population Association, pointed to a correlation between the decline in births last year and the sharp drop in marriages in 2024.

China’s mainland registered 6.106 million marriages in 2024, down more than 20 per cent year on year, marking the lowest level since 1980, Yuan said.However, through the first three quarters of 2025, China recorded a year-on-year upstick of 8.5 per cent in marriage registrations, with analysts signalling that a host of pro-marriage policies were starting to pay off, the Post reported.      (PTI)