Social Welfare · Full chronicle and history

On September 19, population expert Huang Wenzheng published an article refuting National Health Commission Director Lei Haichao's statement that the labor force is sufficient. He pointed out that 8-million annual births cannot sustain long-term scale and warned of a demographic collapse in 20 years without substantial improvements in fertility support. The article was subsequently deleted.

The World Economic Forum released the 2026 Global Gender Gap Report, ranking China 96th overall, with the sex ratio at birth indicator ranking third from the bottom globally.

On September 14, Lei Haichao, Director of the National Health Commission, stated that in the face of negative population growth, the fundamentals of China's total population remain unchanged. He proposed actively promoting views on marriage and childbearing, resisting negative views on marriage and childbearing, and simultaneously promoting the integration of childcare and preschool education while reducing the costs of giving birth and raising children.

On September 12, 2026, netizens filmed a "Socialist Core Values" propaganda board on Shuoyuan Road in Linhe District, Bayannur City, Inner Mongolia, with two homeless people sleeping on the ground behind the board. After the video was posted, the platform cleared the comment section of the video and prohibited further comments, resulting in censorship.

On September 10, 2026, a Douyin user waiting at a hospital saw a man slap a woman sitting in a wheelchair with his palm, the sound extremely loud. The woman had a needle in her hand, picking up a shoe from the floor while retorting, “You keep hitting, hit me to death.” The man then snarled, “It cost me several thousand yuan to bring you to the hospital; believe it or not, I’ll kill you when we go back.” The netizen said the woman seemed accustomed to being beaten. No follow‑up handling of the incident was seen.

On September 11, a video circulated online showing a girl searching for and eating leftover food from a trash can, which garnered widespread attention and shares. The comment section for the related video was strictly limited, displaying only 3 comments, while a large number of netizens used bullet comments to express sarcasm and commentary.

Affected by the decline in the birth population and the concentration of population in urban areas, the number of primary schools in China has rapidly decreased. Data from the Ministry of Education shows that the number of regular primary schools nationwide has decreased by about 29,700 in five years. Many places have begun to revitalize and utilize idle rural primary and secondary school buildings, converting them into facilities such as elderly care service centers, highlighting the background of accelerating low birth rates and aging population.

On September 9, the financial account Gelonghui Tuji Tianxia released data stating that the number of primary schools in China has decreased by approximately 86% over 45 years.

On August 28, official data showed that China's annual birth population in 2025 was only 7.92 million, continuing the downward trend in births.

An employee of a new mobilization automobile supplier worked 31 days in August, with a total work time of 474 hours, averaging 15.8 hours per day, and a maximum of 17.5 hours in a single day, sparking concerns over labor exploitation.

1961 was the most brutal year of China's Three Years of Natural Disasters, during which over 10 million Chinese people starved to death, and cannibalism even occurred in rural areas. Despite this, 9.49 million newborns were born that year.