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
A Guangdong netizen posted a social security retirement income certificate from Shenzhen, showing a monthly payment of 1,989 yuan after nearly 20 years of contributions, sparking public concern over pension gaps and the proposed extension of the social security contribution period to 20 years.
2026-11-04
On November 4, a netizen posted that after paying social security in Shenzhen for 20 years and just retiring, their monthly pension is only 1,989 yuan.
2026-11-04
On November 4, a netizen in Hebei posted a video showing an elderly person with limited mobility crawling on the ground in a very simple room. The video sparked concerns among netizens about their own future elderly care, with some saying they have started saving sleeping pills since the age of 52.
2026-11-03
On November 3, the Shanghai Bendibao WeChat official account posted that starting in 2030, the minimum contribution period for employees to receive a basic pension will be gradually increased from 15 to 20 years, rising by 6 months each year until it reaches 20 years in 2039. Netizens in the comment section responded with sarcasm and mockery.
2026-11-01
On November 1, a Weibo blogger posted praise for Tsai Ing-wen's reduction of retirement benefits for military, civil, and teaching staff during her tenure, with netizens calling her "courageous." The discussion shifted to the pension gap in mainland China, the craze for civil service exams, and voting rights, with many questioning whether mainland policymakers would ever cut their own benefits.
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.
2026-10-29
On October 29, the People's Daily commentary account 'People's Sharp Review' posted on Weibo, criticizing claims such as 'young people can no longer afford to support the elderly' and 'the pension system is about to collapse' as inciting confrontation. It stated that there is no precedent for public pension bankruptcy, but the comment section was set to 'creator-selected,' leading netizens to mock the post under other reposts.
2026-10-28
On October 28, a Bilibili vlogger released an interview: an 84-year-old retired state-owned enterprise employee claimed to receive a monthly pension of over 13,000 yuan and had been allocated housing in Shanghai. Responding to questions about the disparity, the retiree stated, 'We did work that they cannot do.' Netizens in the comments section questioned the unfairness of the pension gap.
2026-10-28
A netizen posted her mother's retirement benefit verification form on Xiaohongshu. Her mother processed her retirement in Yuhong District, Shenyang on October 28, with a cumulative actual paid pension insurance of 22 years and 8 months. Starting from November, her monthly pension was assessed at 2255 RMB, triggering discussions among netizens regarding pension disparities.
2026-10-26
A video recently circulated on Douyin showing a shirtless, emaciated elderly person bending over to rummage through a roadside trash can. Commenters left sarcastic remarks, saying this is the older generation of farmers who handed over their grain quotas — this is what “care in old age” looks like.
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.
2026-10-25
On October 25, a Douyin blogger posted a video of a group of elderly people singing in a park, captioned "Listen! The pension insurance I paid is singing." In the comments section, netizens complained about pension benefits versus the burden of contributions.
2026-10-24
Recently, netizens filmed a group of retired seniors on a trip singing 'Bless the Motherland'. In the comments section, netizens flooded the screen saying that they pay social security to support retired seniors, while their own parents farmed and paid agricultural taxes to support them.
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
On October 23, the Journal of the Central Party School published a paper by scholars from Renmin University of China titled "Optimization of the Social Security System and Solidly Advancing Common Prosperity," which points out that in 2025 the average monthly pension expenditure for urban employees is 3,900 yuan, while that for urban and rural residents is only 276 yuan, a difference of 14 times, and recommends substantially raising the basic pension for farmers, with the older the age, the larger the increase.
2026-10-22
Anhui official media publicized a new policy on urban-rural resident pension insurance: after parents pay their own premiums for the current year, their children may make additional contributions on their behalf, with a maximum limit of 9,000 yuan per person per year, sparking complaints from netizens.
2026-10-21
On October 21, a netizen in Shandong posted a video saying that the month's pension, which he had reported the previous day, had not arrived on time, resonating with many other netizens; after consulting the local Social Security Bureau, he was told that it would arrive in batches over the following days. As of October 22, some netizens still had not received their pensions and were comforting one another.
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.
2026-10-20
On October 20, a blogger in Heilongjiang posted a video in which an elderly man recalled that during the production team era, grain deliveries to the state took up half or even more of the harvest, and that with many children at home there was never enough to eat. The video sparked discussion among netizens about the public grain system and rural pension benefits, with many recounting their experiences of grain shortages in those years and the illness and death of relatives.
2026-10-20
On October 20, Guan Quan, an economics professor at Renmin University of China, posted a video on social media pointing out that urban residents' years of service before 1992 can be converted and counted as deemed contributions, while farmers who paid grain tax for decades cannot, saying that although it is technically difficult, "it's actually not that hard."
2026-10-20
On October 20, a netizen posted that while unemployed, he helped a retired teacher take photos at the library and was pulled aside by her to hear about her retirement life; the elderly woman's pension is higher than the salaries of most young people, her husband was also rehired by an elite school in Suzhou, and she suggested the netizen go to job fairs or take the civil service exam.
2026-10-20
On October 20, a Douyin blogger posted a video claiming to have run into 8 elderly people on a train whose pensions exceed 10,000 yuan, setting off from Urumqi to the south to sightsee and spend the winter, and returning to Xinjiang once the weather warms up. Netizens left comments sarcastically calling them the "deemed contribution" group that has reaped all the dividends of the era.
2026-10-19
On October 19, a netizen posted a call arguing that pensions should not be awarded based on merit, pointing out that the essence of social security is mutual aid and protecting the vulnerable; distributing benefits according to "contributions" would leave elderly people at the bottom with even less security and widen the gap between rich and poor.
2026-10-18
According to a Voice of Hope report, Hu Xijin recently wrote a post addressing the pension issue, claiming that ordinary Chinese people will not rely on the authorities when it comes to old-age support. The remarks sparked strong dissatisfaction among netizens, who criticized him for ignoring the social anxiety caused by the pension pool running dry and an aging population, arguing that his words were shifting responsibility onto the authorities, and accusing him of flattering those above while bullying those below, with no empathy for the survival struggles of ordinary people.
2026-10-17
On October 17, a netizen posted on Xiaohongshu that when applying for a bank card at the Chengyi Plaza Branch of ICBC in Jimei, Xiamen, the teller unauthorizedly opened a personal pension account for them; the money transferred in could not be withdrawn, and they were told it could only be withdrawn upon retirement.
2026-10-16
At a press conference, the head of the Shandong Provincial Department of Civil Affairs claimed that individuals are the primary responsible party for elderly care, triggering a strong public backlash.
2026-10-16
On October 16, the Hanshan county media account "Yujian Hanshan" in Anhui posted a video explaining that children may contribute extra funds to help their parents pay the annual urban and rural residents' pension insurance after the payment is completed; in the comments section, a netizen complained, "Can't I just give my parents the money directly?"
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.
2026-10-13
Fujian Province has raised the pension insurance contribution base and requires insured individuals who previously paid at the old base to make up the difference. A netizen from Zhangzhou posted a payment page showing a monthly shortfall of 29.2 yuan, with payments made at the old minimum tier from January to September requiring a cumulative back payment of 262.8 yuan; a netizen from Fuzhou said the company had already gone bankrupt, leaving the back payments for earlier months unresolved.
2026-10-12
Gelonghui released detailed data on China's social security and employment expenditure from 2018 to 2025: the total in 2025 was 4.44 trillion yuan, of which pension expenditure for administrative and public institutions was about 1.6 trillion yuan, accounting for 36.1% of the total expenditure.
2026-10-12
On October 12, a netizen shared an estimated reference table of pension levels for different groups, prompting other netizens to post comments and discuss the gap in retirement benefits.
2026-10-12
Around October 12, a screenshot showing a high pension of 64,479 yuan for a retiree from inside the system circulated online, sparking discussion among netizens about the gap in retirement benefits.
2026-10-11
On October 11, "How much social insurance do you actually have to pay to get a 10,000-yuan pension" ranked first on Weibo's hot search. Previously, a blogger cited Shanghai as an example, claiming that ordinary people would have to pay contributions at a relatively high base for 30 to 40 years before their pension could exceed 10,000 yuan, and said the shortcut was to get a job inside the system. Netizens sarcastically commented on "deemed contributions" — "they have the final say."
2026-10-11
On October 11, “smoothing out pension benefits” trended on Weibo, reaching a high of No. 15. Under the topic, one blogger suggested that retirees receiving more than 10,000 yuan per month, whose contributions before 2014 were deemed as paid, have their benefits cut by 5% per year for five consecutive years, and that those receiving more than 5,000 yuan have their increases frozen for five years; another blogger called for raising rural pensions to at least 500 yuan, saying rural elderly cannot wait any longer.
2026-10-10
Li Zhong, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), spoke at a State Council Information Office press conference, calling on more flexible workers and workers in new forms of employment to participate in the employee pension insurance program.
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.
2026-10-10
At a State Council Information Office press conference on October 10, Li Zhong, Vice Minister of Human Resources and Social Security, announced that as of the end of September, the number of participants in basic pension, unemployment, and work injury insurance had reached 1.079 billion, 251 million, and 327 million respectively, and said that through policy optimization and other means such as “using data to find people,” those not yet enrolled would be found and mobilized to enroll, with a focus on supporting flexible workers and migrant workers in participating in employee pension insurance.
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.
2026-10-06
On October 6, a Bilibili blogger posted a video discussing whether they would live to see retirement, saying that young people's medical records are updated faster than their resumes, and that some people drop out of the biological circle before reaching retirement age, while relaying fans' accounts of working while ill. In the comments section, netizens recounted how they did not dare to take a break even after breaking a bone. The video received about 133,000 views.
2026-10
The Guangdong government raised the lower limit of the pension insurance contribution base from 4775 to 5521 and required back payments of the difference from January to September, sparking complaints from netizens.
2026-10
Various localities are using big data and door-to-door mobilization at the grassroots level to push for payment of pensions for urban and rural residents and flexible workers; the continuous rise in the social insurance base and amounts is increasing the burden on the public.
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.
2026-09-28
On September 28, a large number of villagers in Gushan Village, Yuelu District, Changsha, Hunan, gathered in front of the village Party-mass service center, raising their arms and protesting in unison. They accused the village committee of failing to distribute elderly pensions as required, illegally disposing of land, and unlawfully bundling votes on demolition and relocation together with social security resettlement. Police and local officials arrived at the scene to handle the situation.
2026-09-27
On September 27, a journalist posted on Weibo regarding the incident of a scavenger elderly person in Hunan receiving 420,000 yuan in pension, pointing out that despite 40 to 50 years of farming labor, the pension is meager, and calling for at least 500 yuan per month, stating that if this goal is achieved starting from 2027, they are willing to donate half of their own pension.
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.
2026-09-14
On September 14, a community in Dongying City, Shandong Province announced the implementation of the "Young-Old Service for the Elderly" project, encouraging people aged 60 to 70 to provide public services for seniors aged 70 to 90. The policy sparked heated public debate, with netizens questioning it as a disguised forced labor amid pension shortfalls.
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
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
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.
2026-08-14
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.
2026-08-14
On August 14, 2026, investigative journalist Li Weiao disclosed during a field visit to the mountainous areas of Hanzhong, Shaanxi, that elderly left-behind farmers receive only 200 yuan in pension per month; living in straitened circumstances, they still have to stay up all night in the fields to ward off wild boars to make a living.
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
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.
2026-07-27
Lu Kewen posted that, excluding rural elderly, China's pensions are higher than those in Japan, South Korea, and France when calculated by the ratio of national income, and argued that this situation puts excessive pressure on public finance and will inevitably lead to comprehensive cuts in the future.
2026-07-27
On July 27, 2026, well-known online blogger Lu Kewen pointed out that China's finances can hardly sustain current pension expenditures and predicted that they would inevitably be cut across the board in the future; shortly after the remarks were published, they were taken down and deleted by the platform.
2026-07
Recently, the Chinese Communist Party has stepped up its recovery of social security contributions from companies, starting to force enterprises to pay back social security arrears from the past five to ten years, which puts greater pressure on private enterprises and employment.
2026-07
After Lu Kewen publicly discussed the pension gap in China and the issue of pensions for those inside the system, his Weibo account was 404'd.
2026-07
The ten-year government bond yield has fallen to 1.74%, half the average level of the past twenty years, deepening the income crisis for long-term assets such as pension funds.
2026-06-30
A registration form for struggling employees among retired personnel of the Anhui Medical Products Administration has gone viral online, sparking netizen dissatisfaction and satire regarding the high incomes and welfare benefits inside the system.
2026-06-15
On June 15, 2026, the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University released a report revealing that the average monthly pension benefit for urban employees in China is about 3825 yuan, while the average monthly benefit under the basic pension insurance for urban and rural residents is only about 246 yuan, a difference of 15.5 times.
2026-04-29
The Ministry of Civil Affairs and eleven other departments jointly issued opinions on promoting the development of mutual aid elderly care services, proposing to achieve a coverage rate of no less than 70% for urban and rural community elderly care service systems by 2030.
2026-04
The video claims that a certain brokerage calculated that Heilongjiang's pension surplus can only support about 1.1 months, ranking last among all provinces, while Guangdong's can last about 53 months; no public report of this calculation can be found, with only old data from around 2015 showing Heilongjiang at about 1 month for comparison.
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.
2026-03-25
Around March 25, in Zhangjiajie, Hubei, netizens filmed a group of retired tourists on a trip singing "The East Is Red" in unison while riding an elevator. After the video was posted, comments angrily shouted "Stop paying social insurance" and "Give my social security back."
2025-04-25
According to a report dated April 25, 2025 by Pingshan County's official account "Pingshan Fabu," a local villager aged 60 or above with family difficulties applied for an 82,300 yuan "social security credit loan" and completed the pension insurance make-up contribution procedures on site.
Location: Pingshan County, Yibin ·
Importance II ·
Verification: Reported ·
View causal chain →
2025-03-07
On March 7, CCTV host Bai Yansong said that farmers' monthly pensions of just over 100 yuan are clearly insufficient, noting that multiple committee members and delegates are proposing to raise them by 20 yuan per year starting now, so that farmers' pensions double in ten years.
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.
2024
A Caixin interview cited data stating that as of the end of 2024, approximately 180 million urban and rural residents were receiving a basic pension, averaging 246 yuan per month; in 2024, the average monthly pension for urban employees was approximately 3,825 yuan, more than 15 times the former.
2022-09-23
Rising yields led to margin calls and collateral requirements for pension funds using LDI strategies, forcing funds to sell government bonds for cash, which further pushed up yields.
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.
2019
In 2019, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released actuarial projections stating that the broad-caliber social security surplus would peak in 2027 and be exhausted by 2035, but in reality the timeline was pushed back due to increased fiscal subsidies.
2016
In 2016, Heilongjiang's current-year pension shortfall reached 32 billion yuan, and its cumulative surplus was negative, making it the only province in the country where the cumulative pension surplus went into deficit.
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.
2014
In 2014, People's Daily published a commentary on pensions, stating that civil servants hold public power and if their pension benefits are poor, it is difficult to lead the team, suggesting that occupational annuities be used to widen the gap in benefits between civil servants and enterprise employees. This article sparked renewed heated discussion in early November 2026.
2012-07
Bai Yansong invited scholars on the program News 1+1 to discuss the delayed retirement policy then under study by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, sparking public debate over pension fairness and youth employment.
2011
The shortfall in urban employee pension insurance in Heilongjiang Province had already exceeded 11 billion yuan as early as 2011, and the current-period balance turned negative in 2013 — 15 to 17 years earlier than the nationally projected 2028 turning point.
2008-09-08
Fu Daxin, a 69-year-old five-guarantee household recipient in Qidong County, Hunan Province, whose monthly pension was only 50 yuan, was sentenced to two years in prison for attempted robbery after wielding a fruit knife at Beijing Railway Station in order to be cared for in prison.
2008
In 2008, the Cristina government of Argentina nationalized private pensions, with nearly $30 billion flowing into government coffers.
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.
1993
The video claims that the Japanese government implemented PKO market support by channeling public pension funds into the stock market, restricting short selling, and designating trust banks to buy shares, and that the support failed after the Nikkei index rose 2.9% in 1993; no public reports of this figure can be found.
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.