In Graphics | With China’s population declining, a look at how Beijing caused a demographic crisis

China is in demographic decline.

According to government data, China registered a birth rate of 5.63 per 1,000 people in 2025. Meanwhile, its death rate rose to 8.04 per 1,000 people, the highest since 1968.

China scrapped its longstanding one-child policy in 2016 and replaced it with a two-child policy. When that did not result in a surge in births, authorities allowed couples to have three children.

China has in recent years passed measures to encourage young people to marry and have children. It has also tried out-of-the-box measures such as taxing condoms and proposing a dating course in the curriculum.

But it hasn't worked. China has witnessed four straight years of population decline. From a strictly enforced one-child policy in the 1980s to today’s efforts to encourage babies, let's take a closer look at how Beijing's policies caused a demographic crisis.

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