2026-11-06
According to data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, 4.648 million couples registered for marriage in China in the first three quarters of 2026, a year-on-year decrease of approximately 500,000 pairs; 2.082 million couples registered for divorce, remaining largely flat compared to the same period last year. The divorce-to-marriage ratio reached 44.8%, approaching the high of 45.3% seen in the same period of 2020.
2026-11-05
Data released by China's Ministry of Civil Affairs shows that approximately 4.65 million couples registered for marriage in the first three quarters of 2026, a decrease of about 500,000 compared to the same period last year.
2026-11-04
Data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs on November 4 shows that in the first three quarters of this year, 4.648 million couples registered for marriage nationwide, a year-on-year decrease of 504,000 couples, or 9.78%. The decline in the third quarter widened to 14.9%; divorce registrations increased slightly by 5,000 to 2.082 million.
2026-10-30
On October 30, the official Bilibili account of China News Service reposted a People's Daily video commentary on pensions regarding young people being unable to afford to support the elderly. A large number of netizens refuted this through comments and bullet comments, stating that they can barely support themselves and questioning whether state media is manufacturing or avoiding anxiety about retirement.
2026-10-28
On October 28, Su Chun-jung, Director-General of the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration under Taiwan's Executive Yuan, stated in the Legislative Yuan that due to declining birth rates and strong salary competitiveness in the private tech sector, a total of 10,872 civil servants resigned across Taiwan between 2022 and 2025, of whom 5,965 had served for less than 5 years.
2026-10-25
According to the China Statistical Yearbook 2026, China's population aged 65 and above reached 224 million in 2025, accounting for 15.9%, exceeding for the first time the share of the 0-to-14 age group at 15.1%; the old-age dependency ratio of 23.1% surpassed the child dependency ratio of 22% for the first time.
2026-10-25
On October 25, Yicai reported that as the number of children declines, kindergartens in many places are being converted into nursing homes, and preschool teachers are changing careers to care for the elderly. In 2025, China's old-age dependency ratio exceeded the child dependency ratio for the first time, with the population aged 65 and above exceeding the 0–14 age group by 10.89 million.
2026-10-23
On October 23, Chinese Premier Li Qiang presided over the State Council executive meeting, calling for accelerating the building of a fertility-friendly society, improving policies on marriage, childbirth, child-rearing and education, optimizing family support measures such as fiscal and tax, social security and housing policies, and striving to stabilize the scale of the newborn population.
2026-10-23
Recently, the Douyin account of a primary school in Henan posted a classroom video in which only one girl was in the room. The teacher took attendance as usual, and the girl answered, "Everyone's here." After class, she left the classroom alone. Netizens left comments joking that she was the teacher's "final disciple."
2026-10-20
On October 20, Gelonghui released data on sex ratios by birth order for 31 provinces (municipalities) based on the 2020 China Census Yearbook: nationally, the sex ratio for first births was 113.17, for second births 106.78, and for third births it rose to 132.93, with Hubei's third-birth sex ratio reaching as high as 177.42, Anhui at 165.95, and Fujian at 164.49.
2026-10-19
On October 19, a mother who had already given birth to 8 daughters posted a video celebrating that her 9th child was finally a son, saying she now has both a son and daughters.
2026-10-13
Research by Yi Fuxian, a demographer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, suggests that China's actual population may be close to 1.27 billion, with the officially announced figure of 1.4 billion overstated by 130 million.
2026-10-13
On October 13, The Wall Street Journal published a report citing research by Yi Fuxian, a scholar at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, saying that China's actual population may be around 1.27 billion, about 130 million fewer than the officially announced 1.4 billion, based on evidence including vaccine dosages, census data, and discrepancies in school-age population records, and noting that overestimating the population could exacerbate strategic miscalculations between China and the United States.
2026-10-13
On October 13, the YuWa Population Think Tank released the World Expected Population Report 2026, stating that China's "expected population" fell from 1.070 billion in 2016 to 264 million in 2025, a decline of 75.3%, already below the 285 million of the United States, and pointing out that current support for childbirth is so insufficient that it is difficult even to keep the indicator from weakening further.
2026-10-10
On October 10, Gelonghui published an article estimating from population birth data that from 2026 to 2050 a cumulative total of about 570 million people in China will turn 60, with an average of about 63,000 people entering retirement age each day, and pressure on pension payouts continuing to grow.
2026-10-09
Data from Hong Kong's Census and Statistics Department show that births from mid-2025 to mid-2026 totaled 29,700, falling below the 30,000 mark for the first time and hitting a new low since records began in the 1960s.
2026-10-09
Shih Wing-ching, founder of am730, published an article in a Hong Kong newspaper claiming that the appearance of condoms is the main cause of declining birth rates, and suggesting that the government mandate that a certain proportion of condom products be leaky defective goods, in order to fine-tune the birth rate.
2026-10
China's births in 2025 totaled only 7.92 million, a decrease of 1.62 million from 9.54 million in 2024, hitting the lowest level in decades.
2026-09-19
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.
2026-09-16
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.
2026-09-14
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.
2026-09-14
According to a Caixin report, many contract teachers in Guangzhou’s Huangpu, Haizhu, Panyu and Huadu districts were dismissed by schools before their contracts expired. Due to declining birthrates, primary school enrollment in Guangzhou fell sharply by about 19.9% from 2023 to 2025, and contract teachers who had been hired in large numbers to cope with enrollment peaks now bear the brunt of layoffs.
2026-09-14
On September 14, Lei Haichao, director of the National Health Commission, stated at a State Council Information Office press conference that although China's newborn population has declined in recent years, it has remained at the order of magnitude of around 8 million, and there will still be relatively abundant labor resources in the future. This statement was subsequently rebutted by Huang Wenzheng in a published article.
2026-09-14
On September 14, at a press conference, Lei Haichao, director of the National Health Commission, stated that China's total population is 1.405 billion and that it will long maintain its status as a populous country in the world, while acknowledging that the population has declined for 4 consecutive years and that newborns have dropped from the tens of millions to the millions.
2026-09-14
Official data show that primary school enrollment in Guangzhou fell from 272,500 in 2023 to 218,300 in 2025, a decrease of 54,200 over two years, or about 19.9%.
2026-09-12
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.
2026-09-12
Affected by the decline in births and the concentration of the population in towns and cities, many places have begun to make use of idle rural primary and secondary school buildings, converting some idle primary schools into nursing homes, elderly care service centers and other facilities.
2026-09-09
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.
2026-09
According to Ministry of Education data disclosed by Yicai, the number of primary school students in China in 2025 fell by more than 4.06 million compared with 2024, ordinary primary schools decreased by 8,000, an average of nearly 22 closing every day; over the past 5 years the total number of ordinary primary schools has fallen by 30,000.
2026-09
According to disclosed statistics, the number of kindergartens closed in China in 2025 rose further, with nearly 59 shut down per day on average, reflecting the impact of the declining birth rate on the preschool education sector.
2026-08-17
On August 17, 2026, Caixin reported that as the school-age population shrinks, surplus school places have appeared in primary schools across the country, yet some megacities have chosen to cut places, and the threshold for migrant children to enroll remains as high as ever.
2026-08-14
On August 14, 2026, financial media reported that, hit by the continuing decline in newborns, the number of full-time kindergarten teachers nationwide dropped by nearly 220,000 in one year, and preschool teacher-training colleges were forced to switch en masse to the field of elderly care.
2026-08-12
On August 12, 2026, the Ministry of Civil Affairs released statistics showing that in the first half of the year, nationwide marriage registrations fell by 264,000 pairs year-on-year, a drop of about 7.5%, while divorce registrations increased year-on-year.
2026-08-06
On August 6, 2026, an associate professor at a private undergraduate university in Guangdong reported that the school laid him off on the grounds that there were no teaching tasks due to structural changes in college entrance exam applicants and the majors they applied for, reflecting the impact of declining enrollment on university teaching positions.
2026-08
In August 2026, Heilongjiang Province drew attention for failing to publish birth rates, death rates, and natural growth rates in its statistical bulletins on national economic and social development for three consecutive years, making it the only province in the country to withhold these indicators.
2026-04
According to online reports, since April 2026, multiple counties and prefecture-level cities, in a push to meet marriage registration targets, have been taking elderly couples in their 80s and 90s from surrounding villages who had never registered their marriages to civil affairs bureaus to retroactively register them; some of the elderly do not even have second-generation ID cards.
2026
In 2026, Hunan issued a notice on the revitalization and utilization of idle rural primary and secondary school buildings, listing elderly care services and others among the possible directions for using idle school buildings.
2025
In 2025, China's birth population was 7.92 million, with a birth rate of only 5.63 per thousand, ranking second to last in the world.
2025
Data from Chinese Communist Party civil affairs departments shows that in 2025 there were 6.765 million marriage registrations nationwide, while the total number of divorces reached 3.937 million, with a marriage-to-divorce ratio as high as 58.2%, setting the highest record in the world under circumstances other than major disasters.
2025
Yicai, citing data from the China Statistical Yearbook 2026, points out that China's old-age dependency ratio is 23.1%, surpassing the child dependency ratio of 22% for the first time.
2023
To cope with the school enrollment peak caused by the "two-child" policy, Guangzhou's Huangpu District hired a cumulative total of 2,482 contract teachers outside the establishment from 2021 to 2023. These teachers have now become the first to bear the pressure of layoffs as student numbers decline.
2020
The 2020 seventh national census showed that China's newborn sex ratio has remained imbalanced since 1990, reaching 121 to 100 in 2004, with 34.9 million more men than women nationwide, of whom marriage-age men aged 20 to 40 outnumber women by 17 million.
2016
In 2016, China fully lifted its two-child policy, but in 2017 the number of births fell instead of rising, coming in millions short of projections.
2015
Zhai Zhenwu, a demographer at Renmin University of China, published an article opposing the lifting of the two-child policy, claiming that if it were fully lifted immediately, the annual peak of births would reach 49.95 million; in 2017, actual births fell instead of rising, his prediction failed, yet he still serves as president of the China Population Association.
2007
In 2007, demographer Yi Fuxian published Big Country, Empty Nest, arguing that China's population data was falsified and that family planning should be abolished; he was subsequently banned and went into exile overseas.
2004
In 2004, demographers including Gu Baochang and Wang Feng jointly petitioned the central authorities, recommending that the one-child family planning policy be changed to a two-child policy. Gu Baochang was cold-shouldered, and Wang Feng was silenced.
1981
In 1981, China established the National Family Planning Commission. Over the following 20-plus years it grew into a massive bureaucratic system, with full-time family planning public employees reaching 800,000 by 2000.
1978
In 1978, after missile expert Song Jian went abroad for exchanges, he and Tian Xueyuan and others used mathematical models to calculate, claiming that if China did not control its population, it would reach 4.264 billion by 2080; Tian Xueyuan also proposed that China's population ceiling should be 650 million to 700 million, providing a basis for family planning.