China's birth rate hits record low: Why Chinese youth aren't having kids

Births in China fell to a record low in 2025 despite subsidies and policy shifts, as young Chinese delay marriage and parenthood amid high costs, job uncertainty and long working hours

In a deepening worry for Xi Jinping and Chinese policymakers, China’s population fell for the fourth consecutive year in 2025, extending a demographic decline that has gathered pace despite repeated policy shifts and incentives aimed at boosting births.

 

Official data released on Monday showed China’s population declined by 3.39 million people last year, taking the total to about 1.4 billion. The fall was steeper than in 2024 and extends an annual decline that began in 2022, and at the heart of the drop is a record collapse in births and a steady rise in deaths.

 

How low have China’s birth rates fallen? 

According to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China recorded 7.92 million births in 2025, down sharply from 9.54 million in 2024, a year-on-year decline of 1.62 million births, or 17 per cent.

 

 

The birth rate reportedly fell to 5.63 births per 1,000 people, the lowest level recorded since 1949, the year the People’s Republic of China was founded. This means that China has now reported more deaths than births for four years in a row, a milestone that marks a structural shift rather than a temporary dip.

 

The country’s fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has over her lifetime, stands at around one, far below the replacement level of 2.1.

 

What is happening to deaths and the overall population balance? 

And while births have fallen rapidly, deaths have continued to rise. China recorded 11.31 million deaths in 2025, pushing the death rate to 8.04 per 1,000 people, the highest since 1968.

 

The combination of falling births and rising deaths resulted in a net population decline of 2.41 per 1,000 people last year.

 

Demographers say the speed of the shift reflects the long-term impact of decades of low fertility, now colliding with a rapidly ageing population.

 

What policies has China tried to reverse the trend? 

China has tried to reverse the population shrinking trend for some time now with policies aimed at incentivising births. It scrapped its one-child policy in 2016, replacing it with a two-child limit. But when births failed to rebound, the government raised the cap to three children per couple in 2021.

 

More recently, Beijing rolled out a nationwide childcare subsidy, effective January 1, 2026, offering parents 3,600 yuan (about $500) per year for each child under the age of three. Public kindergarten fees were waived starting last fall, and some provinces have added extra payouts, subsidised housing and longer maternity leave.

 

And it’s not just the incentives on having a child that is being doled out by the authorities, the move also includes more controversial steps. For example, starting this year, China has imposed a 13 per cent value-added tax on contraceptives, including condoms and birth control pills, after removing earlier exemptions. While not formally labelled a pro-natalist policy, the move was widely interpreted as an attempt to push childbirth.

 

President Xi Jinping has called for a “new culture of marriage and childbearing”, urging officials to shape attitudes towards love, marriage and fertility. Meanwhile, local governments have responded with increasingly intrusive measures, including tracking menstrual cycles and discouraging abortions deemed not medically necessary.

 

Why are young Chinese still not having children? 

However, despite these efforts, birth rates have continued to fall. According to a 2024 report by the YuWa Population Research Institute, China is among the most expensive countries in the world to raise a child, as high housing, education and childcare costs remain a major deterrent.

 

Economic pressures have only increased the problem. Youth unemployment among those aged 16 to 24 reached 18.9 per cent in August, and many young people work long hours under the so-called “996” culture, 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week.

 

Marriage rates are also at record lows as many couples born during the one-child era now face the dual burden of raising children while caring for two sets of ageing parents. Therefore, public reaction to government incentives has been muted, with some young people saying higher condom prices are still far cheaper than the cost of raising a child.

 

What does this mean for China’s economy and future population? 

A shrinking population carries significant economic and social implications because, as China’s working-age population falls, it will weaken the labour supply and consumer demand. While the economy grew 5 per cent in 2025, meeting the official target, economists say growth was driven largely by exports, masking sluggish domestic consumption.

 

At the same time, the ageing population challenge is accelerating as the number of people aged 60 and above is expected to reach 400 million by 2035, and the state pension system is already under strain, with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences warning that funds are running low.

 

United Nations projections suggest China’s population could fall from around 1.4 billion today to about 800 million by 2100, with some estimates pointing to a loss of more than half its population by the end of the century.

 

For now, the data suggests that China’s demographic decline is a crisis which is deepening, and the policy tool options to reverse it are running out.