In the quiet suburbs of Suzhou, Zhang Wei stared at a colorful government brochure that had been tucked into his mailbox. It promised “New Era Childbearing Subsidies”—specifically, a nationwide grant of 3,600 yuan annually until a child’s third birthday, a policy slated to take full effect by January 2025.
Wei crumpled the paper. To the officials in Beijing, he was a data point in a national crisis. To himself, he was a thirty-year-old software engineer living in the shadow of a demographic giant that had finally begun to shrink.
The Great Reversal
For decades, the narrative was one of containment. Under the shadow of the One-Child Policy (1979–2015), the Chinese government viewed its population—which nearly doubled under Mao Zedong—as a threat to economic stability. They were successful beyond their wildest fears: the policy prevented an estimated 400 million births.
However, by 2023, the world’s most famous demographic statistic flipped. For the first time since the Great Famine of 1961, China’s population officially began to contract, dropping to 1.411 billion and ceding the “most populous” title to India. By late 2024, the decline accelerated further, with the population falling by another 1.39 million.
A Disconnect of Realities
In the eyes of the government, the solution was a “full-scale growth policy.” They moved from a two-child limit in 2016 to a three-child policy in 2021, and eventually to the aggressive 2025 incentives Wei held in his hand—including plans for “zero out-of-pocket” childbirth expenses by 2026.
But for Wei and his wife, Li Na, the “opposite effect” mentioned by historians was their daily reality.
“They want us to have three children to save the economy,” Li Na said over dinner, “but we can barely afford the ‘996’ lifestyle (9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week) just to keep our apartment. Who has time for a first child, let alone a third?”
The disconnect was rooted in specialized economic factors:
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The Fertility Trap: China’s total fertility rate has plummeted to approximately 1.0, far below the “replacement level” of 2.1 required to keep a population stable.
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The Silver Wave: As of 2025, over 310 million people in China are over the age of 60. To keep the pension system from collapsing, the government recently raised the retirement age for the first time in decades (to 63 for men and 58 for white-collar women).
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Hyper-Competitive Education: The “involution” (neijuan) of Chinese society means parents spend a staggering percentage of their income on extracurriculars to ensure their child isn’t left behind.
The New Map of the World
As the story of China’s population continues to unfold in 2025, the global landscape is shifting. India is now the undisputed leader in human capital, while China is forced to pivot from a “labor-intensive” economy to one driven by AI and automation to offset its shrinking workforce.
The government continues to build more nurseries and pass pro-natalist laws, but the people—haunted by the high cost of living and the memory of decades of “one-child” indoctrination—remain hesitant. The policy that once forced families to stay small has successfully changed the cultural DNA of a generation, making the “opposite effect” the defining challenge of China’s future.
All names of people and organizations appearing in this story are pseudonyms
When giving birth is a national duty: Beijing’s struggle to reverse demographic decline
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