China’s birth rate fell to its lowest on record, reports Bloomberg. This comes despite efforts to encourage childbirth and puts more pressure on the country’s economy to boost productivity and stave off long-term decline.

The number of births for every thousand people dropped to 5.6 last year, the lowest since at least the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, when official records began. The total population shrank by 3.39 million, the sharpest contraction since the Mao Zedong era.

As the future workforce shrivels and population ages, the increasingly unfavorable demographic profile threatens to weigh on the economy, Bloomberg says. This leaves Beijing with a narrowing set of options: accelerate its high-tech pivot or risk fueling social discontent by making a graying population work longer, which it did in 2024 by raising the retirement age for the first time since the 1950s.

Prices for existing homes in China’s four major cities continued to drop in December, reports Caixin, which says this is a sign that recovery remains elusive despite a slower pace of monthly declines.

Data released Monday by the National Bureau of Statistics showed that prices of second-hand homes in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen dropped 7% in December from a year earlier, deepening from a 5.8% annual drop the prior month. On a month-over-month basis, prices slipped 0.9%, moderating slightly from November’s steeper fall.

The numbers suggest the market remains under significant pressure even as the rate of price erosion appears to be easing.

Real estate brokerages in China’s major cities are urging owners of existing homes to lower prices to spur sales transactions, reports Caixin. This comes amid a property market downturn which shows no signs of easing.

Some of the price cuts have developed into “systematic and organized practices,” with some real estate agents even significantly lowering the listing prices of secondhand homes without consulting their owners, Caixin reports He Ling, marketing president at Shenzhen-based real estate brokerage Leyoujia, as saying.

In early January, a Hangzhou operating unit of Ke Holdings, the country’s largest housing transaction platform also known as Beike, launched a campaign in the city encouraging its real estate agents to negotiate price cuts with home sellers. Agents can receive rewards for persuading owners of highly rated properties—considered “quality listings” in the company’s internal system—to lower the prices by more than 5%. Sources said the policy was halted less than a week after its launch. Beike emphasized in an internal notice that the platform sticks to a principle that bans forced prices cuts or hikes.

The International Monetary Fund has raised its 2026 economic growth forecasts for China by 0.3 percentage points to 4.5%, reports the South China Morning Post, which says this is the latest sign that the pause in their trade war has eased pressure on both economies.

The IMF says its 4.5% growth forecast is supported by lower US tariff rates and domestic stimulus measures. Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics earlier on Monday reported that the GDP growth rate in 2025 was 5%.

China’s birth rate has dropped to its lowest since records began. This comes despite Beijing’s best attempts at encouraging the population to have children—including discouraging the use of condoms by taxing. 

Meanwhile, there continues to be more doom and gloom with China’s property sector—second-hand house prices are continuing to drop, and real estate agents are reportedly encouraging sellers to accept lower prices.

On the flipside, China’s humanoid robot makers seems to be taking off, with record sales outperforming its US counterparts. Perhaps robots can fill many of the jobs left open by a shrinking population, but they certainly won’t be buying apartments or spending money on consumer goods.