China’s birth rate hits record low

China’s birth rate has fallen to a record low despite government efforts to encourage families to have more children, as the country’s population declined for a fourth consecutive year.

Official data released on Monday showed the birth rate dropped to 5.63 per 1,000 people in 2025 — the lowest since the Communist Party came to power in 1949 — while the death rate rose to 8.04 per 1,000 people, the highest level since 1968.

The population fell by 3.39 million to 1.4 billion by the end of the year, marking a faster decline than in 2024.

Beijing has been stepping up efforts to boost births as it confronts an ageing population and a slowing economy.

In 2016, authorities ended the one-child policy and introduced a two-child limit. When that failed to produce a lasting rise in births, the government allowed couples to have up to three children in 2021.

More recently, parents have been offered 3,600 yuan (£375; $500) for each child under the age of three, while some provinces have introduced additional bonuses and extended maternity leave.

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Some measures have proved controversial. A new 13% tax on contraceptives, including condoms, birth control pills and devices, has raised concerns about unwanted pregnancies and rising HIV rates.

China now has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, at about one birth per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

Other regional economies, including South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, face similarly low fertility levels.

Raising a child in China is also among the most expensive in the world, according to a 2024 report by the YuWa Population Research Institute in Beijing.

But many people say financial pressure is not the only reason they are delaying or avoiding parenthood.

“I have very few peers who have children, and if they do, they’re obsessed about getting the best nanny or enrolling the kids in the best schools. It sounds exhausting,” a Beijing resident told the BBC in 2021.

The United Nations expects China’s population to continue shrinking, estimating it could lose more than half of its current population by 2100.

Demographers warn that a smaller population will deepen labour shortages and weaken consumer demand in the world’s second-largest economy.

With more young people moving away from home, a growing number of elderly citizens are being left to care for themselves or depend on state support.

The state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has warned that pension funds are running out, leaving the country with little time to build the resources needed to support its rapidly ageing population.

(BBC News)