China has officially entered a stage of moderate aging society, with the rapid aging of the population and the shrinkage of the labor force becoming an unavoidable reality for Beijing authorities. According to official data, the population aged 60 and above in China has exceeded 300 million for the first time, accounting for 22% of the total population. Experts point out that this is the dire consequence of China’s birth policy, which will deeply threaten the country’s economy and social structure in the coming decades.
The latest data from the official “China Statistical Yearbook 2025” shows that by the end of 2024, China’s population aged 60 and above reached 310 million, accounting for 22% of the total population; the population aged 65 and above accounts for 15.6%, surpassing the threshold for moderate aging internationally. Among the 31 provinces, 20 provinces have experienced negative population growth rates, with Liaoning, Shanghai, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Chongqing, Tianjin, Gansu, and others already entering the stage of moderate aging.
Taking the 2024 local yearbook data of the four major cities as an example, Shanghai has over 5.77 million registered residents aged 60 and above, accounting for 37.6% of the total population; Beijing has 4.32 million people aged 60 and above, accounting for 30.3%; Guangdong Province still has a relatively young population structure, with the elderly in Guangzhou accounting for 19.4%, and only 8% in Shenzhen.
China issue expert Wang He told Dajiyuan, “Shanghai is one of the most economically developed regions in China, with the elderly population reaching 37%, far exceeding the national level. It is estimated that by 2035, the whole country may enter a stage of severe aging. This trend is irreversible and inevitable for the country.”
He emphasized that this is the dire result of the Communist Party’s 35-year one-child policy, stating, “This has had a profound impact on China’s economic and social development, inflicting significant damage to the Chinese nation. The sins of the Communist Party in this regard are countless.”
The National Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party announced in January 2025 that China’s total population in 2024 was 1.4828 billion, a decrease of 1.39 million from the previous year, marking the third consecutive year of decline. In 2022, China’s population decreased by 850,000, the first negative growth in sixty years; and a decrease of 2.08 million in 2023. Reuters reported that this is the first time since the 1961 “Great Leap Forward” famine that a consecutive “deaths exceeding births” phenomenon has occurred.
The United Nations “2024 World Population Prospects” report predicts that China will experience the largest absolute population decline in the world between 2024 and 2054, with a decrease of 204 million people over thirty years; by 2100, China’s population may be 786 million less than in 2024, equivalent to half of the current population.
From 1979 to 2015, China implemented a 35-year-long “one-child policy” to control population growth, which also led to an imbalance in the male-female ratio.
In November 2013, the “Second Child Policy” was initiated, allowing couples where one is an only child to have two children; the “Two-Child Policy” was officially implemented in 2016; and starting from 2021, having three children was allowed.
Despite Beijing’s encouragement of childbirth by raising the threshold for divorce and abortions and providing subsidies to reduce the burden of child-rearing, the results have been limited. With rising urban living costs, slowing economic growth, and high youth unemployment rates, more and more young people are becoming less willing to have children.
According to Wang He’s observations, no country in the world has successfully recovered from low fertility rates once they have fallen, at most maintaining their current levels. “The stimulus measures provided by the CCP are too weak, and many local governments find it difficult to even fulfill subsidies due to financial difficulties.”
A report by Dezan Shira and Associates in the June issue of “China Briefing” highlighted that China is the world’s second-largest population country, but experienced a decline for the first time in sixty years in 2022, marking the beginning of a long-term demographic decline with far-reaching effects on the economy and business environment.
The report mentioned that among numerous social and economic challenges, population aging and labor force shrinkage pose particularly worrisome long-term impacts. Long-term risks are significantly on the rise.
According to official statistical yearbooks, in 2024, the working-age population in China (ages 16 to 59) accounted for only 60.9%, totaling 858 million people, against 310 million elderly populations.
Wang He analyzed, “China’s aging population and declining birth rates have led to insufficient consumption power; on the other hand, the shrinking labor force and fewer young people have caused a decline in the entire society’s innovation vitality, inadequate supply-side momentum, which is a huge negative factor for the Chinese economy.”
He further stated that China’s “pay-as-you-go” pension system is difficult to sustain. “The number of contributors is decreasing while the number of pension recipients is increasing, resulting in long-term deficits that can only be sustained by massive state subsidies. With the economic downturn and declining fiscal revenues, the gap between income and expenditure is growing, raising concerns about the sustainability of the pension system.”
Data released by the World Bank in November showed that in 2020, China’s pension assets accounted for only 2.2% of GDP, ranking 68th out of 78 countries globally, well below the global average of 29.44%. Additionally, an OECD report indicated that China’s public pension spending accounts for about 7.7% of GDP, with a huge disparity between assets and expenditure, reflecting underlying systemic crisis.
To address the aging population, Beijing authorities have gradually increased the legal retirement age starting from 2025 – the retirement age for men has been raised from 60 to 63, while female managerial and technical workers will retire between the ages of 55 and 58. According to the newly revised retirement age, one 65-year-old in China currently corresponds to five labor force individuals aged 20 to 64, which will decrease to 1.9 individuals by 2040 and further drop to 1.5 by 2050.
Wang He believes that the root cause of the current crisis lies in the CCP’s family planning policy. “This is not a natural evolution but the result of the Communist Party’s erroneous policies that have caused this devastation. This is one of the greatest sins of the Communist Party.”
He pointed out that China is now facing the dilemma of being “old before becoming rich”. “When Japan entered an aging society, it was already affluent with a per capita income of tens of thousands of dollars; China currently only has slightly over ten thousand dollars, with an immature economic structure but carrying a huge burden of pensions and medical care.”
He warned that continued aging will lead to a shrinking school-age population, a tightening job market, weakened innovation capabilities, while socialized silver economy and medical care industries remain significantly underdeveloped. “The technical adjustments such as delaying retirement age undertaken by the CCP are only short-term solutions and fail to address the root cause.”
In conclusion, Wang He stated, “The CCP’s population policy has long gone against the natural order and the entire country is now bearing the consequences it has caused. This demographic crisis will profoundly threaten China’s economic destiny and national future in the coming decades.”