China's population has shrunk for the fourth straight year as birthrates hit a record low, national data shows.
In 2025, the total population shrank by 0.24 per cent, or 3.39 million people, with experts predicting further decline.
Between 2024 and 2025, the number of births dropped by 17 per cent — from 9.54 million to 7.92 million, figures from China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.
That was the lowest birth rate since records began in 1949, the year the People's Republic of China was founded.
Feng Chongyi, an associate professor in China studies at the University of Technology Sydney, said the decline that began in 2022 was "an extremely serious — even alarming — reversal".
Meanwhile, the number of deaths during that same period increased from 10.93 million to 11.31 million people, the highest since 1968.
NBS data showed that the number of people aged over 60 years reached about 23 per cent of total population.
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.
Despite a raft of policies to reverse a shrinking population, it has continued to decline since 2022, complicating Beijing's plan to boost domestic consumption and reduce debt.
What's driving the decline?
Dr Feng said the decline was the result of deep structural issues within the population, a legacy of the one-child policy.
"That policy not only reduced the overall number of births but also caused a serious gender imbalance," he said.
Not only were there fewer people of child-bearing age than before, there was also a long-standing preference for boys, especially in rural populations, leading to more men than women, he added.
The second structural problem was that China's economic growth had reached its ceiling, especially for young people.
"High housing costs, heavy household debt, limited consumption power and weak income growth have eroded confidence," he said.
"Many young people feel they cannot even secure a stable life for themselves, let alone raise children."
He pointed to surveys that also showed young people felt like their lives lacked vitality and meaning and chose not to marry or have children, even if they could afford it.
According to an Edelman survey released at the World Economic Forum, just 56 per cent of people in China believed the next generation will be better off than them, a drop of 13 per cent from the previous year.
Cheng Yonggui sells wedding shoes and the 48-year-old told Reuters she was "very anxious" about whether her two sons could find a marriage partner.
In China, it is customary for parents of the groom to help their sons pay for an apartment and car, as well as a kind of dowry in some cases, before any marriage.
Ms Cheng estimates this will cost her and her husband "at least a million" yuan ($214,480) per son.
What's been done to reverse the decline?
In 2016, China scrapped the one-child policy that, for 27 years, forbade families from having more than one child.
It also introduced the three-child policy in 2021, allowing families to have up to three children.
Last May, couples were also allowed to marry anywhere in China instead of where they lived.
This change, along with more auspicious dates in 2025, led to a 8.5 per cent uptick in marriage rates according to Ministry of Civil Affairs.
Beijing faces a total potential cost of about 180 billion yuan ($38.6 billion) to boost births, according to Reuters estimates.
Key costs include the national child subsidy, introduced in 2024, and a pledge that pregnant women in 2026 will not be "out of pocket" and have all medical costs, including in vitro fertilisation (IVF), fully covered.
A nationwide childcare subsidy policy came into force on January 1, which offers parents the equivalent of about $745 annually per child under the age of three.
Fees for public kindergartens were also waived from last autumn.
This year the government also removed tax exemptions for condoms and contraceptive pills, which could make these methods of birth control up to 13 per cent more expensive.
Are the policies working?
Dr Feng said without meaningful institutional change, a population rebound was unlikely.
"The sharp decline in the youth population and the structural imbalances cannot be corrected quickly," he said.
At the same time, China's existing development model can no longer generate enough employment opportunities or restore confidence in the future, he said.
"Young people need to believe that effort will be rewarded, that careers can advance, and that life will improve," he said.
"Without that belief, fertility incentives alone will not work."
Xiujian Peng, senior research fellow at the Centre of Policy Studies at Victoria University, said adjusting work expectations could help couples balance family life and have the energy to have more children.
She said allowing both men and women to work from home, and guaranteeing a woman's job after giving birth would help.
"Ensuring job security and preventing workplace discrimination against women who give birth can reduce the career costs of motherhood and encourage higher fertility," Dr Peng said.
However, she said these policies would not be enough to reverse the decline.
"These policies may stop the further decline of births or slightly increase the births number, but they can not change China's population decline trend," she said.
"Even if China's government could reverse the fertility decline immediately and increase its total fertility rate to a replacement level of 2.1, it will still take around 70 years for China's population to increase again.
"But many countries' experience in east Asia and Europe has told us there is no quick fix for a low fertility rate, so we will see China's total population will continue to decline in this century."
She added that in the long term, the population decline could lead to serious economic challenges for China.
"Without sustained reforms, such as stronger family support, higher labour force participation, reforms to the social security system, and continued improvements in productivity and technology, the demographic trend could become a major constraint on China's economic and social development," she said.
Editor's note 20/1/2026: This story previously said China’s population shrank by 2.4 per cent in 2025. This has been corrected to say it shrank by 0.24 per cent.
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