China's population has fallen for a fourth straight year, according to new official data, with the birthrate plunging to a historic low and deaths rising. The sustained decline deepens anxieties about a rapidly ageing society, a shrinking workforce, and the profound long-term economic consequences for the world's second-largest economy.
A Deepening Demographic Decline
Figures released by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reveal the scale of the challenge. The total population dropped by 3.39 million to 1.405 billion in 2025, a steeper fall than the previous year. The number of births collapsed to 7.92 million, down a sharp 17% from 9.54 million in 2024. Concurrently, deaths climbed to 11.31 million from 10.93 million.
This resulted in a national birthrate of just 5.63 births per 1,000 people. Demographer Yi Fuxian from the University of Wisconsin-Madison put this into stark historical context, noting that births in 2025 were "roughly the same level as in 1738, when China's population was only about 150 million". Meanwhile, the death rate of 8.04 per 1,000 people was the highest recorded since 1968.
The Roots of the Crisis and Economic Fallout
The demographic shift is a direct legacy of the decades-long one-child policy, compounded by modern economic and social pressures. A key leading indicator, the number of marriages, plunged by a fifth in 2024 to just over 6.1 million, the steepest drop on record. However, a recent policy change allowing couples to marry anywhere in the country, not just their hometown, provided a temporary boost, with unions rising 22.5% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2025.
Urbanisation, where child-rearing costs are far higher, has exacerbated the trend. China's urbanisation rate reached 68% in 2025, up from 43% in 2005. The economic implications are severe. With over-60s now accounting for about 23% of the population, and predictions that this group will swell to 400 million by 2035, the workforce is set to contract dramatically just as pension budgets come under immense strain.
Authorities have already been forced to raise retirement ages and are making population planning a core part of economic strategy. Reuters estimates that Beijing faces potential costs of about 180 billion yuan (£19.8bn) this year in efforts to increase births.
Policy Responses and a Global Trend
In response to the crisis, the Chinese government is rolling out a series of expensive incentives and promoting "positive views on marriage and childbearing". Measures include a national child subsidy and a commitment that from 2026, women will have "no out-of-pocket expenses" during pregnancy, with all medical costs—including for IVF—fully covered by national insurance.
Despite these efforts, China's fertility rate remains one of the lowest globally, at approximately one birth per woman, far below the 2.1 replacement rate needed to maintain a stable population. This places China alongside other East Asian societies like Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore, which also grapple with fertility rates around 1.1. The United Nations forecasts that China's pool of women of reproductive age (15-49) will shrink by more than two-thirds to under 100 million by the century's end, signalling that the demographic downturn has decades yet to run.
