China's National Bureau of Statistics confirmed what policymakers have feared: the country's population slipped to 1.405 billion by the end of 2025, a decline of 3.39 million from a year earlier. Births fell to 7.92 million, pushing the crude birth rate to 5.63 per thousand while the death rate stood at 8.04 per thousand, leaving a natural decrease of 2.41 per thousand. The economy still grew by 5% in 2025, with GDP reaching RMB 140.2 trillion—about $19.63 trillion at the year's average exchange rate—but demographic trends have become a central concern for planners.
Beijing's language has shifted from passive acceptance of lower fertility to active mitigation. For the first time, official guidance called explicitly for “stabilizing the scale of new births” while reiterating the need to “advocate positive marriage and childbearing views.” That lexical change matters: it signals a move from liberalising family policy toward an interventionist, pro-natalist stance that treats fertility as a policy objective rather than a private choice.
Policy signals in 2025 were unmistakable and fiscal. Authorities rolled out a nationwide annual subsidy of RMB 3,600 for children aged 0–3, extended preschool support and began piloting “zero down-payment” measures for childbearing costs with a 2026 target of broad coverage. Local governments paired these measures with administrative loosening—national portability of marriage registration and relaxation of hukou constraints—and creative campaigns designed to nudge people toward marriage and childbearing.
The most immediate demographic uptick has come in marriages. Through the first three quarters of 2025, 5.152 million couples registered marriages, an 8.5% rise year-on-year, and several major cities reported jumps well above the national average. That rebound is consequential because marriage remains tightly linked to childbearing in China; rising marriage registrations in 2025 are likely to translate into modest birth gains in 2026 given the usual gestation lag.
Yet structural headwinds make a dramatic reversal unlikely. The number of women of prime childbearing age continues to shrink, and deep social changes—urban lifestyles, career prioritisation among women, persistent housing and education costs—have reduced fertility preferences. Policymakers acknowledge the demographic inertia: the use of the word “stabilize” reflects a realistic goal of stopping steep declines rather than promising a quick return to replacement-level fertility.
China is not alone in confronting these dilemmas. Japan's long campaign of cash incentives and family policies has failed to lift its total fertility rate above roughly 1.1, while South Korea has only recently eked out a small rebound after years at the global low end. Those cases suggest that generous spending and policy persistence can blunt declines and produce modest recoveries, but they also caution that cultural and structural shifts are harder to reverse than budget lines are to write.
The stakes are high: continued population contraction would amplify labour shortages, raise per-capita pension burdens, and constrain long-term growth unless offset by productivity gains or immigration—an option China has so far been reluctant to pursue. Policymakers have therefore elevated birth policy into a “one-leader” task in many localities, integrating marriage, childbearing, childcare, education, housing and employment supports into a single administrative push.
What emerges is a pragmatic, risk-averse strategy: deploy real cash transfers and tangible services to create a buffer and buy time for deeper social adjustments. If the aim is to “stop the fall and stabilise,” 2026 will be a key year: marriage and subsidy-driven gains may provide a modest rebound in births, but a durable recovery will require sustained fiscal commitment and policies that reshape incentives across labour markets, housing and gender norms.