China’s population will fall for a fourth straight year in 2025 as the birth rate falls to another record low, according to official data, prompting experts to warn of further decline.
The population fell by 3.39 million to 1.405 billion, a faster decline than in 2024. The number of births fell 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 showed. The country’s birth rate fell to 5.63 per 1,000 people.
Births in 2025 were “about the same level as in 1738, when China’s population was only about 150 million,” said Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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 aging rapidly, complicating Beijing’s plan to boost domestic consumption and rein in debt.
People over the age of 60 represent about 23% of the total population, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics. By 2035, the number of people over the age of 60 is expected to reach 400 million – roughly equivalent to the populations of the United States and Italy combined – meaning that hundreds of millions of people are likely to leave the labor force at a time when retirement budgets are already stretched.
China has already raised the retirement age, with men now expected to work until 63 instead of 60, and women until 58 instead of 55.
Marriage rates in China fell by a fifth in 2024, the largest decline on record, with more than 6.1 million couples registered, down from 7.68 million in 2023. Marriage is usually a leading indicator of birth rates in China.
Demographers say the decision in May 2025 to allow couples to marry anywhere in the country, not just where they live, is likely to lead to a temporary increase in births.
Marriages rose 22.5% year-on-year to 1.61 million in the third quarter of 2025, putting China on track to halt a nearly decade-long annual decline. Full data for 2025 will be released later this year.
Authorities are also trying to promote “positive views on marriage and childbearing” as they seek to counter the long-term effects of the one-child policy, which was in effect from 1980 to 2015 and helped reduce poverty but reshaped Chinese families and society.
Population movement has exacerbated the demographic challenge, with large numbers of people moving from rural areas to cities, where raising children is more expensive. China’s urbanization rate will reach 68% in 2025, up from about 43% in 2005.
Policymakers have made population planning an important part of the country’s economic strategy. This year, Beijing faces potential costs of about 180 billion yuan ($25.8 billion/£19.3 billion) to increase births, according to Reuters estimates.
The measures include a national child support introduced last year and a commitment that from 2026 women will have “no out-of-pocket expenses” during pregnancy, with all medical costs – including IVF – paid in full from the National Medical Insurance Fund.
China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, with a rate of one birth per woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. Other East Asian countries, including Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore, have similarly low fertility levels, at about 1.1 births per woman.
The number of women of reproductive age in China – defined by the United Nations as women aged 15 to 49 – is expected to shrink by more than two-thirds to less than 100 million by the end of this century.