By Emmanuel Nduka Obisue
China’s birth rate dropped to its lowest level on record last year, official data released on Monday showed, highlighting deepening demographic challenges despite sustained government efforts to reverse the trend.
Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that 7.92 million births were recorded in 2025, representing a birth rate of 5.63 per 1,000 people, the lowest since national records began in 1949. The decline comes even after Beijing ended its decades-long one-child policy, with the country’s birth rate now having halved over the past decade.
Births fell by 1.62 million, or 17 percent, year-on-year, while China’s population decreased by 3.39 million compared with 2024, marking the fourth consecutive annual decline since 2022. The data also showed that China recorded 11.31 million deaths in 2025, pushing the mortality rate to 8.04 per 1,000 people and resulting in a net population decline of 2.41 per 1,000. The United Nations has projected that China’s population could shrink from about 1.4 billion today to 800 million by 2100 if current trends persist.
Marriage rates have also fallen to record lows, with many young Chinese delaying or opting out of parenthood due to rising child-rearing costs, housing pressures and career concerns. For couples born under the former family planning policy, many of whom are only children. The challenge is compounded by the responsibility of raising children while caring for two sets of ageing parents.
In response, authorities have introduced a range of measures aimed at encouraging family formation, including a nationwide childcare subsidy that took effect on January 1, offering parents the equivalent of about $500 annually for each child under the age of three. Fees for public kindergartens were also waived from last autumn, while tax exemptions on contraceptives were removed, subjecting them to a 13 percent value-added tax.
Despite these initiatives, China ranked among the 10 countries with the lowest birth rates globally in 2023, according to World Bank data, just behind Japan, and many young people say the incentives are insufficient to address the deeper economic and social pressures discouraging them from having children.
