China registers lowest number of births since records began

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China last year registered the lowest number of births since records began, marking the fourth consecutive year of population decline as policymakers grapple with a demographic crisis. 

On Monday, the government reported that 7.92mn babies were born in 2025, down from 9.54mn the year before, and the lowest number of births since 1949. Last year, 11.31mn people died. China’s population fell by 3.39mn to 1.405bn.

The numbers were published alongside economic data that showed China’s economy expanded by 5 per cent in 2025. 

In 2016, Beijing loosened the one-child restriction per household before later scrapping the policy altogether. Authorities across China have introduced a swath of measures over the past decade to bolster the fertility rate — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — and encourage people to get married.

As China’s population gets richer and more educated, people are having fewer babies, analysts say.

“The decline in China’s fertility is inevitable, like a giant rock rolling down a hill,” said Yi Fuxian, an expert on Chinese demographics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “China’s one-child policy accelerated the process. It will be very difficult to move it back up hill.”

None of the initiatives have had much success, Yi said, because they “fail to identify the key issues” stopping couples from having children. “It is necessary to reform the social security and tax systems and strengthen family values to ensure that childbearing is materially and morally rewarded,” he said.

There was a mild boost to the birth rate in 2024, the year of the dragon, seen as an auspicious year for giving birth.

That increase, the first since 2016, boosted hopes the government’s pronatalist policies were having an impact. China’s fertility rate is now 0.98, said Yi, far below the 2.1 needed for the population to remain stable. 

The declining population has wide-reaching implications for the Chinese economy. As the number of taxpaying workers shrinks, Beijing will struggle to support a swelling number of retirees. 

Beijing has put greater emphasis on automation, particularly in the manufacturing sector, an increasingly central engine of the country’s economic growth after the 2021 property crisis.

Policymakers are betting that it can alleviate some of the impact of the ageing workforce by replacing them with robots. China far outstrips the rest of the world in the number of installed robots.