China’s Birth Rate Lowest in 70 Years, Marriage Rate Also Declining

A woman cycles past a billboard encouraging couples to have only one child, along a road leading to a village in the suburbs of Beijing in this file photo. Goh Chai Hin/AFP/Getty Images

China’s birth rate has fallen to the lowest level since the communists took over China in 1949, and the trend may continue as the country’s marriage rate has also dropped to a 12-year low.

There were 14.65 million births in China last year, a drop of 580,000 from 2018, according to a report from China’s National Bureau of Statistics published on Jan. 17.