To help its citizens have more children and prevent its population from shrinking, China has tried everything, even labeling having babies as an act of patriotism. And yet the population shrank for the third year in a row.
Even a surprising increase in the number of babies born, a first in seven years, could not reverse the course of an aging and declining population.
China is staring at a longer-term baby bust rippling through the economy. Hospitals are closing their maternity wards, and companies selling baby food are at a standstill. Thousands of kindergartens have closed and more than 170,000 kindergarten teachers will lose their jobs by 2023.
The country's birth rate has, as one former kindergarten in the southern city of Chongqing put it, “fell off a cliff.” According to the most recent available data, Chinese kindergarten enrollments will fall by more than five million by 2023.
On Friday, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that 9.54 million babies were born last year, a slight increase from the 9.02 million in 2023. Together with the number of people who died in 2024: 10.93. million – China's population shrank for the third year in a row.
The small bump in newborns, partly because it was the auspicious Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac, did not change the broader trajectory, experts said. China's population is declining and young people are reluctant to have children.
“In the medium and long term, the annual number of births in my country will continue to decline,” said Ren Yuan, professor at Fudan University's Institute of Population Studies.
The lack of babies is adding to China's economic problems. A shrinking workforce is putting pressure on an underfunded pension system, and an aging society relies on a creaking healthcare system. China also reported Friday that its economy will grow by 5 percent in 2024, a figure that was in line with expectations but that many experts said did not fully reflect a crisis of confidence among households reeling from a years-long housing crisis.
To encourage people to have more babies, authorities are offering tax breaks, cheaper housing and cash. Cities promise to cover the costs of in vitro fertilization. In some parts of the country, they are even promising to abolish restrictions that penalize single mothers.
The government has called on local officials to implement early warning systems to monitor major population changes at village and city levels across the country. Some officials even knock on doors and call women to inquire about their menstrual cycles.
Companies are also participating. In 2023, travel site Trip.com began paying employees nearly $1,400 a year for each newborn up to age five. Last week, the founder of electric vehicle maker XPeng said he would give employees almost $4,100 if they had a third child.
“We want our employees to have more children,” He Xiaopeng, the founder, said in a video on social media. “I think the company should provide the money so employees can have children.”
The problem is not unique to China, which was overtaken by India as the world's most populous country in 2023. Declining birth rates are often a measure of a country's rise up the economic ladder, because fertility rates tend to decline as incomes and education levels rise. But China's sudden population drop came much sooner than the government expected. Many families earn more money than ten years ago, but have lost income due to the housing crisis.
Officials have long feared that one day there won't be enough workers to support the retirees. Now the government has less time to prepare. In the next ten years, more than 400 million people will be 60 years or older.
China faces two challenges in this regard. The public pension system is severely underfunded, and many young people are reluctant – or unable – to contribute. A low retirement age has made matters worse. After years of consultation, the government decided on a fifteen-year plan to gradually raise the official age to 63 for men, 58 for women in office jobs and 55 for women working in factories. The changes came into effect this month.
The party only relaxed birth restrictions in 2015, allowing families to have two children, a relaxation that sparked a sudden boom. Hospitals had to place beds in the corridors because there were not enough.
But the moment was short-lived. In 2017, births started declining every year until last year.
In 2021, panicked officials relaxed China's birth policy again, allowing couples to have three children. It was too late. The following year, so few babies were born that the population began to shrink for the first time since the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong's failed experiment that resulted in widespread famine and deaths in the 1960s.
China has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, well below what demographers call the replacement rate needed to grow a population. This threshold requires that each couple have an average of two children.
Experts say the number of births will likely continue to fluctuate.
“For a country of 1.4 billion people, half a million births is no recovery at all,” said Wang Feng, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine. “This is compared to the lowest year, in 2023, when the pandemic certainly put a pause on having children.”
Many young Chinese are quick to list reasons for not having children: the rising costs of education, the growing burden of caring for their aging parents and the desire to live a lifestyle known as 'Double Income,' No Kids'.
For women, the sentiment is especially strong. Daughters who were the only children in their families received education and employment that their parents often did not receive. They have grown up to be empowered women who see Mr. Xi's call to fulfill their patriotic duty and have children as a step too far. Many of these women have said that entrenched inequality and inadequate legal protections have made them reluctant to marry.
The sharp decline in the number of babies is having a drastic effect on healthcare, education and even the consumer market. Companies that once made money selling baby food to feed a baby boom are now making shakes with calcium and selenium for older adults with brittle bones.
Nestlé, the largest food company in the world, is closing a factory for the Chinese market, where more than 500 people work on the other side of the world in Europe. The company will focus on selling premium baby products and expanding its adult nutrition offerings in China, a spokesperson said.
The pressure on China's healthcare system is even greater. Dozens of hospitals and maternity hospital chains have reported their closure in the past two years.
On social media forums, nurses who specialize in obstetrics have spoken about low wages and lost jobs. One doctor told state media that obstetrics, once considered an “iron rice bowl” job with guaranteed job security, had become a “rusty iron rice bowl.”
And some smaller hospitals have stopped paying their staff, Han Zhonghou, a former official at a hospital in northern China, told a Chinese magazine.
“Life for maternal and child hospitals,” Mr. Han said, “is getting harder and harder every year.”
