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.