Aging Population

From ancient times until today, an enormous population has been a foundational way for China to project its strength. But anxiety about managing so many mouths has always loomed. China has a population of 600 million people, and we must never forget this fact, Mao Zedong said in 1957, shortly before setting off a calamitous famine. China's masses, though, are getting to be less massive. And that's a problem. Birth rate numbers released Monday, the lowest since Mao's Communists established the People's Republic in 1949, are the latest development in a millennia-long struggle in China, where producing children and refreshing the population of the young have been central to the national conversation since the country's earliest days. China's population stands at 1.404 billion today, down 3 million from the previous year. And the central government's challenge remains much as it has always been: to manage a citizenry that both enhances the country's strength and claims enormous ...

How do you convince a population to have more babies after generations of a policy that limited families to just one? A decade after ending China's longtime, one-child policy, authorities are pushing a whole range of ideas and policies to try and encourage more births, ranging from cash subsidies to taxing condoms. The efforts haven't paid off yet. At least, that is what population figures released Monday show for what is now the world's second-most populous nation. China's population of 1.4 billion continued to shrink, marking the fourth straight year of decrease, new government statistics show. The total population in 2025 stood at 1.404 billion, which was 3 million less than the previous year. The statistics illustrate the stark demographic pressures the country faces. The number of new babies born was just 7.92 million in 2025, a decline of 1.62 million, or 17%. The latest birth numbers show the slight tick upwards in 2024 was not a lasting trend. Births declined for seven year

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The report pointed to a range of factors driving the fall in the birth rate - from shifts in social norms to a reduction in women's career earnings from having a baby

With the Chinese society aging and the slowing economy, the middle class is starting to argue over money as well, tearing apart long-held social norms such as family harmony and filial duty

For a quarter century, President Vladimir Putin has faced the spectre of Russia's shrinking and aging population. In 1999, a year before he came to power, the number of babies born in Russia plunged to its lowest recorded level. In 2005, Putin said the demographic woes needed to be resolved by maintaining "social and economic stability. In 2019, he said the problem still haunted the country. As recently as Thursday, he told a Kremlin demographic conference that increasing births was crucial for Russia. Putin has launched initiatives to encourage people to have more children -- from free school meals for large families to awarding Soviet-style hero-mother medals to women with 10 or more children. Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, and even more children, Putin said in 2023. Let's preserve and revive these wonderful traditions. Having many children and a large family must become the norm. At first, births in Russia grew with its economic prosperity, f

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While China's new payout is its boldest pro-birth move yet, it may not counter the deep economic and social pressures driving China's demographic decline

India, China, the US, Indonesia, and Pakistan together account for approximately 46 per cent of the world's population

Vietnam has abolished its long-standing two-child limit on Tuesday to try and reverse declining birth rates and ease the pressures of an aging population. The National Assembly passed amendments scrapping rules that limit families to having one or two children, state media Vietnam News Agency reported on Wednesday. Vietnamese families are having fewer children than ever before. The birth rate in 2021 was 2.11 children per woman, just over the replacement rate required for a population to avoid shrinking over the long term. Since then, the birth rate has steadily declined: to 2.01 in 2022, 1.96 in 2023 and 1.91 in 2024. Vietnam is not the only Asian country with low fertility. But, unlike Japan, South Korea or Singapore, it is still a developing economy. Nguyen Thu Linh, 37, a marketing manager in Vietnam's capital Hanoi, said that she and her husband decided to have only one child because they wanted to ensure that they could give their six-year-old son the best education and ...

Given that most births in China occur within marriage, this downward trend in marriage rates is expected to push birth figures even lower in 2025

A growing number of countries are confronting the dual challenges of population decline and aging, as younger generations opt to have fewer children and advances in healthcare extend life expectancy. China said Friday that its population fell for the third straight year in 2024, falling by almost 1.4 million to 1.408 billion. Elsewhere in Asia, Japan's population has been falling for 15 years, while South Korea's growth turned negative in 2021. In Italy, the number of births has fallen below 400,000 for the first time since the 19th century. The population has peaked in 63 countries and territories, about half in Europe, the United Nations says. The UN projects another 48 will hit their peak over the next 30 years. Globally, the population of 8.2 billion people is still growing, with the UN projecting it will reach 10.3 billion in roughly 60 years and then start to decline. For many countries with shrinking populations, the slow-moving but hard-to-reverse trend has prompted ...

Population decline is not unique to China, East Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, have also experienced decreases in birth rates

Guidelines issued by the Chinese govt state that the country will promote the development of humanoid robots, brain-computer interfaces, and AI tech specifically designed for elderly care

The current elderly population of India (those aged 60 and above) is about 153 million

The South Korea's Ministry of the Interior and Safety reported that 10.24 million people in the country are now aged 65 or above

By 2050, India will host 15% of the world's silver generation, facing a rising wave of dementia

Every Wednesday, retiree Zhang Zhili travels an hour by bus to an education center, drawn by the pulsing rhythms of the African drum she plays there in a classroom filled with fellow retirees whose hands move in unison, every beat lifting her spirits. Zhang, 71, has found joy and new friends at the elderly university in Beijing. Besides African drums, the former primary school teacher joins social dance classes, paying about 2,000 yuan (USD 280) for two courses this semester. Seeing herself standing tall in dance class boosts her confidence. After class, she hangs out with her friends. When we get old, what do we need?" she said. To love ourselves. Many older Chinese are looking beyond traditional nursing homes, afraid of abandonment by their families and quality issues. That's driving a boom in universities, home care services, and communities catering to older adults. Though some providers struggle to turn a profit, they persist because they see promise in the growing market. Chi

To coax companies to keep elderly people employed, the government is already providing subsidies to firms employing those aged 65 and older

Delhi saw a decline in birth rate after the COVID-19 pandemic as it reduced from 18.35 per 1000 population to 14.85 in 2020, according to the latest report of the government. The 'Annual Report on Registration of Births and Deaths in Delhi-2023' also said that out of 13,919 non-institutional births, 7,216 (51.84 per cent) were females. Out of 3,01,168 institutional births, 1,94,428 (64.56 per cent) births occurred in government hospitals. Out of the total institutional births, 1,43,891 (47.78 per cent) were females, according to the report. The report said one of the important indicators that emerge out of Civil Registration System is birth rate which, during the period between 2005 to 2019, is hovering between 18-22 per 1000 population. However, after Covid-19, the birth rate ranges between 13-15 per 1000 population from 2020-2023. The report, however, did not cite the reason for the decline in figures. In 2019, the birth rate stood at 18.35 per 1000 population while it declined