BEIJING — Ten years after China ended the one-child policy, the country is still losing people and births remain too low to offset deaths, government statistics show. Demographers say the pivot from restrictions to pro-birth incentives is colliding with high living costs, job uncertainty and a smaller pool of potential parents, making a quick turnaround unlikely, Jan. 1, 2026.
Ten years after the one-child policy: the numbers keep moving the wrong way
China’s National Bureau of Statistics put the population at 1.40828 billion at the end of 2024, down 1.39 million from a year earlier, in its 2024 statistical communiqué. Births totaled 9.54 million and deaths reached 10.93 million, leaving the country with negative natural population growth.
The 2024 birth count was a rare bounce after years of declines, but it did not stop the overall contraction. A Reuters report on the annual population release said China’s population fell for a third consecutive year and highlighted entrenched pressures — from childcare costs to gender expectations — that are keeping many families small. Reuters also quoted Yun Zhou, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, who said the decline “cannot be reversed” without “fundamental structural transformations.”
Those headwinds show up in longer-term measures. The World Bank’s fertility-rate series for China places the country at about one birth per woman in its most recent estimate, far below the level typically needed to keep a population steady.
Analysts also point to how quickly births fell after the one-child policy was lifted. A Peterson Institute chart analysis noted births in 2023 were roughly half their level eight years earlier, narrowing the future workforce and consumer base as the country ages.
From limits to allowances — and still not enough
When leaders announced the end of the one-child policy in 2015, many young urban families were unmoved. “People are thinking: Why increase our burden by having another baby?” a mother told Reuters in an October 2015 dispatch.
That hesitation showed up quickly. In a January 2018 Reuters story citing official figures, births were reported to have fallen 3.5% in 2017 despite the shift away from the one-child policy, with officials pointing to fewer women of childbearing age and more people delaying marriage and pregnancy.
By 2021, Beijing widened the rules again, allowing three children per married couple, according to a June 2021 Reuters report. The pattern has left officials trying to raise births with subsidies and messaging, while many couples say the costs and time demands of childrearing remain the bigger obstacle.
A new push to raise births, including a condom tax
Provincial and local governments have expanded childcare, parental leave and cash incentives, and national leaders have urged institutions to encourage marriage and parenthood. But demographers say incentives cannot quickly replace the cohort shaped by the one-child policy era or undo the economic calculus that leads couples to stop at one.
Beijing’s reversal is also appearing in the tax code. “Contraceptive drugs and products” will no longer be tax-exempt as of Jan. 1 and will face a 13% value-added tax, according to an Associated Press report on the change. Public-health experts questioned whether making contraception costlier will do much to raise birth rates.
Ten years after the one-child policy ended, China is discovering that rebuilding a generation is slower than regulating it. Demographers say the next decade will hinge less on caps and slogans than on whether raising children becomes affordable enough that families choose bigger households on their own.
