Can China Escape Its Demographic Death Spiral?
China's population is on track to drop by as much as 75%. America will outnumber it by the end of the century. The process is now virtually unstoppable. But Beijing is beginning to try.
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by Yi Fuxian
September 4, 2025
China's fertility rate (births per woman) is likely to fall from 1.0 in 2023 to 0.9 in 2025, just half of what officials predicted in 2016 and well below the generational replacement level of 2.1. This alarming demographic reality has finally forced the Chinese government to announce on March 5, 2025 that it would formulate policies on boosting births.
On July 28, China rolled out an annual childcare subsidy of 3,600 yuan ($502) until age three. In 2024 the Chinese proposed lowering the costs of childbearing, parenting and education, providing maternity subsidies, tax breaks, affordable childcare and extended parental leave.
Japan has already done this. In the Japanese case, fertility rate only temporarily rose from 1.26 (2005) to 1.45 (2015), falling again to 1.15 (2024). China, which is getting old before it gets rich, has more to consider than just how to fund these programmes.
For some, the decline in the fertility rate is seen as inevitable, like a giant rock rolling down a hill. It will be very difficult for China to move it back uphill, because of three major challenges: economic, physiological, and cultural.