UPDATED: Feb 1, 2026 21:20 IST
China’s population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025 as the birthrate plunged to a record low. The official data and experts warning tactics that range from cash subsidies to taxing condoms to eliminating a tax on matchmakers and day care centers.
The world second most population ofChinais dropped by 3.39 million to 1.405 billion, a faster decline than 2024, while the total number of births dropped to 7.92 million in 2025, down 17% from 9.54 million in 2024. The number of deaths rose to 11.31 million from 10.93 million in 2024, figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.
China’s birth rate dropped to 5.63 per 1,000 people.
The demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Yi Fuxian, says, Births in 2025 were “roughly the same level as in 1738, when China’s population was only about 150 million,”.
The number of people aged over 60 years old reached around 23% of total population, the NBS data showed. By 2035 the number of over-60s is set to hit 400 million – roughly equal to the populations of the United States and Italy combined – meaning hundreds of millions of people are set to leave the workforce at a time when pension budgets are already stretched. China has already increased retirement ages, with men now expected to work until they are 63 rather than 60, and women until they are 58 rather than 55.
Marriages and One-child policy
Marriages are typically a leading indicator for birthrates in China. In 2023 7.68 million were registered couples. now it steeped to down as 6.1 million.
Demographers say a decision in May 2025 to allow couples to marry anywhere in the country, rather than only their place of residence, is likely to lead to a temporary increase in births. Authorities are also trying to promote “positive views on marriage and childbearing” as they seek to counter the long-term effects of the one-child policy, which was in force from 1980 to 2015 and helped reduce poverty but reshaped Chinese society.
Policymakers have made population planning a key part of the country’s economic strategy and this year Beijing faces a total potential cost of around 180 billion yuan ($25.8 billion) to boost births, according to Reuters estimates.
China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world at around 1 birth per woman, well below the 2.1 replacement rate. Other East Asian economies including Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have similarly low levels of fertility at around 1.1 births per woman.
China’s pool of women of reproductive age, defined by the UN as women aged from 15 to 49 years old, is set to drop by more than two-thirds to less than 100 million by the end of the century.
