China’s National Bureau of Statistics has released 2025 population figures that lay bare how fast the country’s demographic profile is changing. Annual births dropped to about 7.92 million, a fall of roughly 1.62 million from the previous year, while the total population contracted by about 3.39 million to 1.40489 billion. The result: China’s share of the world’s newborns has fallen to roughly 6.12%, down from 7.38% in 2024 and far below the historical peak of 27.3% recorded in 1964.
The shortfall is starker when compared with external expectations. The UN’s population division had estimated roughly 8.71 million births for China in the year, leaving an almost 800,000-birth gap between forecast and reality — a margin comparable to the entire birth count of contemporary Japan. That gap underscores both the speed of China’s fertility decline and the difficulty of modelling a demographic transition that has accelerated in just a few years.
Fertility has been beneath the replacement threshold for decades. Total fertility fell below the replacement level around 1991 and has continued to decline: roughly 1.15 in 2021 and below 1.1 since 2022, markedly lower than Japan’s current rate near 1.3. Policy loosening produced only transient rebounds: the 2016 shift to a universal two‑child policy briefly lifted births to about 18.8 million, but the effect rapidly faded. By 2023 annual births were about 9.02 million and the downward trend has persisted.
Demographic projections now paint a long-term picture of shrinkage. The 2023 China Population Projection report estimates that if current fertility holds, the population will fall to about 1.374 billion by 2030 and to 1.230 billion by 2050. Annual births are projected to be roughly 8.34 million in 2030 and to slip further to about 6.98 million by 2050, at which point China’s newborn numbers will likely trail even those of the United States.
Regional variation complicates the national story. Some inland and minority areas — notably Gansu’s Linxia, parts of Tibet, and sections of Yunnan — still register relatively high birthrates, while coastal metropolises and the old industrial Northeast record some of the lowest in the world. Cities such as Shenzhen and Dongguan are exceptions among major Chinese urban centres because of their very young populations and inflows of working‑age migrants, but even their rates are modest by global standards.
Economic and social consequences are already emerging. A smaller cohort of newborns portends an aging population, slower labour-force growth and mounting pressure on pension systems and elder care. That said, the decline also relieves environmental pressure and could raise per‑capita resource availability. High childrearing costs are a central driver of low fertility: household surveys show urban costs for raising a child to age 17 can exceed 600,000 yuan, with Shenzhen’s 0–3 costs alone averaging around 74,600 yuan per year — sums that many families judge unaffordable.
Policy implications are stark. One-off policy relaxations have proved insufficient to reverse the demographic tide. China faces a narrow menu of choices: redouble pro‑natal incentives (cash subsidies, housing and childcare supports), raise labour productivity through education and technology, expand legal avenues for skilled immigration, and adjust retirement ages and pension rules. None of these is painless; combined, they are the realistic path to offset shrinkage rather than an immediate reversal.
Demographics will not determine geopolitics in isolation, but they matter. A smaller labour pool and a higher dependency ratio will shape China’s economic growth model, fiscal priorities and long‑term strategic planning. The country will increasingly compete on productivity, capital intensity and technological edge rather than sheer demographic scale — a transition that will test institutions and policies in coming decades.