China’s birth rate fell to a record low last year.
01/19/2026, 07:0501/19/2026, 07:05
According to the statistics office in Beijing, only 5.63 children were born per 1,000 inhabitants. This means that the birth rate has reached its lowest level since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. As a further sign of demographic change, China’s population fell further to almost 1.405 billion at the end of 2025, a decrease of around 3.4 million people compared to the previous year.
China’s population has begun to decline.Image: keystone
China’s society is aging. People are having fewer and fewer children, even though the one-child policy that Beijing used to control population growth for decades ended more than ten years ago. One of the reasons is that education costs are high in large cities. The government has been trying to remedy the situation with child benefit since last year.
“Baby boomers” are retiring
At the same time, the country is experiencing a pension boom. In the coming years, the “baby boomers” – those born in the baby boomers of the 1960s – will retire. By 2050, it is estimated that 520 million people in China will be 60 years old or older.
The increasing number of seniors and shrinking workforce are putting a strain on the pension fund of the world’s second largest economy. China’s government therefore began to gradually raise the retirement age last year. Over the following 15 years, the limit for men increases from 60 to 63 years. For women, who previously had two retirement ages depending on their occupational group, this threshold will increase either from 50 to 55 years or from 55 to 58 years. (sda/dpa)