China records lowest birth rate ever, as population shrinks
China clocked its lowest birth rate on record in 2025 as its population shrank for the fourth year in a row, deepening a demographic challenge that could drag on the world’s second-largest economy for decades to come.
The rate fell to 5.63 births per 1,000 people in 2025, beneath 2023’s low of 6.39 per 1,000, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported. The drop suggests that a slight uptick in births in 2024 was an outlier rather than a reversal of an otherwise steady decline since 2016.
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China’s economy grew 5% in 2025, officials also reported, in line with the government’s annual goal of “around 5%.”
The annual expansion was buoyed by a surge in Chinese exports that offset trade tensions with the US and weak consumption at home.
Officials hailed the “remarkable stability” of the economy, with statistics bureau chief Kang Yi saying this was achieved despite a “complex and severe situation marked by rapid changes in the external environment and mounting domestic challenges.”
“In 2025, China’s economy withstood pressure and maintained steady progress, achieving new results in high-quality development,” Kang said in a press conference.
Despite the on-target annual economic growth, the birth figures deal a blow to Beijing’s efforts to reverse the impact of decades of stringent, state-enforced birth control under the now-abandoned “one-child” policy, and persuade more young people to have children.
With the 7.92 million babies born in China last year outpaced by 11.31 million deaths, the overall population dropped by 3.39 million, the data shows. The country’s headcount – still the world’s second-largest, behind India’s – stands at 1.4 billion for 2025.
China’s demographic challenge
China’s changing demographics are seen as a stark challenge by officials, as the country’s labour force shrinks and its population of pension-drawing retired adults grows.
Years of stringent population control under the “one-child” policy, which was scrapped in 2016, have accelerated trends seen in other countries like Japan and South Korea, where falling birth rates have been seen as a result of rising education levels, changing views on marriage, rapid urbanisation, and the higher cost of raising kids.
The ageing of China’s society deepened in 2025, with the population of those aged over 60 standing at 323 million and making up 23% of the population, up one percentage point from 2024, the data shows.
A staggering half of the country’s population could be over 60 by 2100, according to United Nations projections – a reality with potentially far-reaching implications, for not only China’s economy but also its ambitions to rival the United States as a military power.
Half of China’s population could be over 60 by 2100, according to the UN.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has evoked the need for “population security” and made the “development of a high-quality population” a national priority. He’s also overseen a push to automate and upgrade the country’s manufacturing powerhouse, replacing human labour with robotic labor.
China’s central government last year began offering annual cash bonuses to families with children under the age of three, amended rules to streamline marriage registration, and kicked off a scheme for free public preschool.
Those add to a raft of incentives local governments have tried in recent years to boost birth rates – from tax breaks and financial assistance for buying and renting homes, to cash handouts and extended maternity leave.
Declining births last year relative to 2024 may also have been linked to the Chinese zodiac, with 2025’s “Year of the Snake” considered less desirable for offspring than the previous “Year of the Dragon.”
Analysts expect more policies or incentives to support births and marriage in the year ahead. But many believe it will be impossible to stem the decline, especially as young people struggle to find jobs and eye the high costs of raising children, while women say the uneven burden of child-rearing discourages them from starting or expanding families.
Fewer babies may also have a more immediate economic impact.
“Children are ‘super consumers.’ With births at such low levels, China’s domestic demand is likely to remain weak, leaving the economy increasingly dependent on exports,” Yi Fuxian, a demographic expert and senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.
