Key Highlights
- Births dropped to 7.92 million in 2025, down 17% from 9.54 million in 2024, while deaths rose to 11.31 million from 10.93 million in 2024, figures from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.
- The country’s birthrate fell to 5.63 for every 1,000 people. Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said births in 2025 were “roughly the same level as in 1738, when China’s population was only about 150 million”. China’s death rate of 8.04 per 1,000 people in 2025 was the highest since 1968.
- The population has been shrinking since 2022 and is ageing rapidly, complicating Beijing’s plan to boost domestic consumption and rein in debt. Over-60s account for about 23% of the total population, according to NBS data.
- By 2035, the number of people older than 60 is predicted to reach 400 million – roughly equal to the populations of the US and Italy combined – meaning hundreds of millions of people are likely to leave the workforce at a time when pension budgets are already stretched.24:14Frozen in Time: the motherhood dilemma for single women in ChinaChina has already raised retirement ages, with men now expected to work until 63 rather than 60, and women until 58 rather than 55. Marriages in China plunged by a fifth in 2024, the steepest drop on record, with more than 6.1 million couples registering, down from 7.68 million in 2023.
- Marriages are typically a leading indicator for birthrates in China. Demographers say a decision in May 2025 to allow couples to marry anywhere in the country, rather than only their place of residence, is likely to lead to a temporary increase to births. Marriages rose 22.5% year on year to 1.61 million in the third quarter of 2025, putting China on course to halt an almost decade-long annual decline.
