China’s birth rate has dropped to a historic low, exacerbating the aging population and deteriorating population structure. The decline in the working-age population has put a strain on the healthcare and pension systems, directly impacting the Chinese Communist regime.
Due to the implementation of the cruel one-child policy by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), it has caused numerous family tragedies. With the population crisis in China, more and more people are concerned that the CCP will resort to old tricks – whether through persuasion or coercion – to force people to have children. However, analysts believe that regardless of the CCP’s approach, encouraging marriage and childbirth in China is proving ineffective.
In 1979, China’s population reached nearly 1 billion, prompting the CCP to aggressively enforce the one-child policy. To control the population, CCP family planning officials carried out forced sterilizations and abortions, imposed heavy fines on families with more than one child, monitored childbearing women, and even abducted children born in violation of the policy.
Under the shadow of the one-child policy, China’s fertility rate sharply declined from over 7.0 in the early 1960s to 1.5 in 2015, leading to panic within the CCP. In January 2016, the CCP relaxed the policy to allow a second child, but the impact was limited. Five years later, they permitted a third child and began promoting marriage and childbirth among young people by making divorce more difficult, offering tax incentives and parenting subsidies.
However, despite these efforts, the birth rate has continued to decline, falling to 1.2 in 2021 and further dropping to 1.0 in 2024. The latest official data from the CCP shows that last year, only 7.92 million babies were born in China, a 17% decrease from 9.54 million in 2024. The number of newborns hit a record low since the CCP was founded in 1949, with the birth rate plummeting to the level of the Qing Dynasty in 1738 (when China’s population was around 150 million).
Currently, the average number of children born to childbearing women in China is around one, far below the replacement rate of about two children per couple required to maintain population stability. China’s population has been declining for four consecutive years, with an accelerating trend. Official statistics show a net decrease of 3.4 million people last year. Most demographers predict that if this trend continues, China’s population will drop to around 500-600 million by 2100.
Adding to the existing challenges, decades of violent family planning policies, coupled with traditional biases towards male offspring, have led to a severe shortage of childbearing women and a surplus of tens of millions of males over females. Last year, the number of women aged 20 to 34, accounting for 85% of the childbearing female population, was estimated at 105 million, but is projected to drop to 58 million by 2050. On the other hand, the phenomenon of highly-educated single women has become prevalent.
All these factors have led to a severe imbalance in China’s marriage market, where many men struggle to find partners due to the gender disparity, while women prioritize education and career opportunities, delaying childbirth.
One of the major reasons why young people are hesitant to have children is the heavy financial burden of raising them. Despite the fear of loneliness, many are unwilling to bear the pressure of raising multiple children. The average cost of raising a child in China before they turn 18 is estimated to be around 538,000 RMB, with higher costs in urban areas. Since the 1990s, declining fertility rates in China have been mainly due to individuals’ voluntary choices rather than government policies.
In China, marriage and childbirth are closely intertwined, with most children born within legal marriages. However, in recent years, the number of registered marriages in China has drastically declined. The latest data shows that in 2024, only 6 million couples registered for marriage, less than half of the number in 2013.
Experts are concerned that the CCP may resort to familiar tactics and mobilize the state machinery to forcibly reverse the population trend. In fact, there are already signs of this happening, with measures such as taxing contraceptives and increasing the difficulty of abortion and sterilization procedures. CCP officials, who were once enforcers of the one-child policy, are now pressuring childbearing-aged women by regularly calling and harassing them about why they are not pregnant yet.
As the primary enforcers of the one-child policy, local CCP officials are actively responding to the policy urging childbirth. Evidence suggests that some local governments have tied promotions of officials to the number of children they have. In 2024, a leaked policy proposal revealed that the Health Commission of Quanzhou city called on party members and officials to lead the way in having a third child.
CCP leader Xi Jinping has also begun emphasizing encouraging childbirth, stating in 2023 that women should not only consider their jobs but also contribute to the country’s development by actively promoting new marriage and childbirth cultures.
The Washington Post reported that Carl Minzner, a senior researcher in China studies at the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China, pointed out that the massive family planning apparatus of the CCP has shifted towards an all-encompassing birth encouragement strategy. Chinese authorities may treat population growth as a political task, similar to when they vigorously enforced the one-child policy, setting clear fertility targets and integrating them into local officials’ performance appraisals.
The bitter cost of the family planning policy is irreversible, and despite the CCP’s efforts, young people are still reluctant to marry and have children. Reversing the declining population trend will not be an easy task.
Asian countries like Singapore and South Korea have been grappling with their own ultra-low birth rates and have implemented various measures such as paid maternity leave, parenting subsidies, tax exemptions, cash incentives, limitations on constructing smaller apartments, the promotion of family-friendly housing, and even large-scale patriotic propaganda campaigns, yet have only achieved birth rates of 1.2 and 0.7.
In 2020, the CCP implemented a cooling-off period for divorces, requiring a 30-day waiting period before a court could accept divorce applications. Some argue that this period may trap women in abusive relationships. In July 2023, a man met his wife during the 30-day waiting period and killed her. In May 2024, a man in Guizhou poisoned his young children with insecticide during the divorce waiting period.
During the National People’s Congress last year, a female delegate proposed to remove the divorce cooling-off period clause, but received no support. Experts point out that CCP officials show no respect for women’s rights when formulating policies, and the push to increase population may backfire by angering a generation of young Chinese women, further exacerbating gender disparities and causing a sharp decline in marriage and birth rates.
Experts also argue that the CCP’s 13% tax on contraceptives has minimal impact, considering the affordable prices of contraception. A box of condoms costs around 50 RMB, and monthly contraceptive pills average around 130 RMB, with the added tax only amounting to a few yuan per month and a few hundred yuan per year, which is easily affordable.
Activists and experts highlight that expanding the one-child policy has led to women being perceived as mere childbearing machines, failing to boost the birth rate while exacerbating discrimination against women in the job market.
For instance, although the CCP introduced a one-year maternity leave policy, the lack of accompanying paternity leave leaves many women concerned about job security after returning to work. Many companies prioritize hiring men, subjecting women to discrimination not only in the workplace but even in the job-seeking process.
The CCP’s childbirth encouragement policies are unlikely to be effective for another reason. Population scholars in the 2000s proposed that once fertility rates drop to extremely low levels due to rising living standards and increased female employment opportunities, it becomes challenging to raise them significantly again.
Economist Milton Friedman once said, “If you put the government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.” Indeed, entrusting the CCP, a massive population-driven nation, with the task of managing procreation has resulted in a significant population shortfall in China.