How the CCP Won the War on Population—And Lost It

A generation ago, China feared having too many babies—today, it fears not having enough.

A woman carrying a baby in Yanji, Jilin Province, China, on June 24, 2015. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Does anyone wonder why China leads the world in advanced, AI-driven, human-like robot production when it has such a huge workforce?

Perhaps it’s time someone did.

Vanishing Children

Across China, kindergartens are closing because there aren’t enough students. Elementary schools are merging. Universities are competing for shrinking graduating classes. Entire provinces are reporting fewer births year after year, while nursing homes expand faster than maternity wards.

What was once viewed as a triumph of state planning has become one of the greatest strategic challenges facing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

A Crisis Decades in the Making

The demographic crisis confronting China was not created overnight, nor can it be solved simply by encouraging couples to have more children.

It’s the cumulative result of decades of government social engineering, an economy increasingly constrained by state control, soaring housing costs, declining economic confidence, and a generation that has largely stopped believing tomorrow will be better than today.

The numbers are staggering.

According to the United Nations, China’s total fertility rate (TFR)—the average number of children a woman is expected to have—was approximately six children per woman during the early 1950s.

Now China Can’t Replace Itself

Even before the nationwide one-child policy officially began in 1980, aggressive family-planning campaigns during the 1970s had already pushed fertility sharply downward.

By the early 1990s, China had fallen below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. Today, most international estimates place China’s fertility rate between roughly 1.0 and 1.2 children per woman—among the world’s lowest.

A one-child policy billboard reading 'Have fewer children, have a better life' greets residents on the main street of Shuangwang in southern Guangxi region, China, in May 2017. Goh Chai Hin/AFP via Getty Images

By comparison, the global fertility rate remains approximately 2.2 births per woman, while the United States averages roughly 1.6, France about 1.8, and India approximately 2.0. China now joins South Korea as one of the countries facing severe demographic decline.

The CCP Made Human Beings, Marriage and Children Liabilities

This collapse did not happen in a vacuum.

For more than three decades, the CCP used extraordinary measures to reduce birth rates. The one-child policy included heavy financial penalties, employment consequences, forced abortions, forced sterilizations, and extensive government monitoring of reproductive decisions.

While China’s population growth slowed dramatically, the policy also permanently changed how multiple generations viewed marriage, family, and parenthood.

Young Chinese increasingly came to see children not as economic assets but as financial liabilities.

CCP Economic Policies Reinforced That View

China’s state-directed real estate market became the primary store of household wealth, with local governments relying heavily on land sales to finance spending. Housing prices climbed far faster than incomes in many cities, making home ownership an unofficial prerequisite for marriage.

Meanwhile, raising children became extraordinarily expensive. Families faced escalating costs for education, tutoring, childcare, healthcare, and housing near desirable schools.

Although Beijing has attempted to restrict private tutoring and reduce educational pressure, the financial burden remains substantial.

Then came a slowing economy.

The CCP’s Warped Economy Shaping New Cultural Pressures

Years of top-down corruption and market distortions have left the economy unbalanced and dysfunctional. Regulatory crackdowns on technology companies, mounting debt in the property sector, slowing growth, and weak consumer confidence left many young adults questioning whether they could afford either marriage or children.

Independent economists continue to identify youth employment as one of China’s most persistent economic challenges.

Out of these pressures emerged two defining cultural movements among younger Chinese.

“Tang Ping,” or “lying flat,” rejects the relentless pursuit of a career, marriage, homeownership, and children. A related movement known as “Bailan,” often translated as “let it rot,” reflects an even deeper sense of resignation that hard work no longer guarantees opportunity.

These movements are not simply internet trends. They are symptoms of declining confidence in the future.

The CCP Is the Problem, Not the Solution

The CCP has recognized the problem but has struggled to reverse it.

After ending the one-child policy in 2015, Beijing introduced a two-child policy and later expanded it to a three-child policy in 2021.

It isn’t working.

Provincial governments now offer tax incentives, housing subsidies, childcare assistance, extended parental leave, and direct cash payments for newborns.

Yet births continue to fall.

China recorded approximately 9.56 million births in 2022 and about 9.02 million in 2023, while the country’s population declined for the first time in consecutive years in decades.

The reasons for this are clear.

Government permission to have three children does not make raising three children affordable.

Nor does it restore confidence among a generation that has watched housing prices soar, career prospects weaken, and upward mobility become increasingly uncertain.

Is China’s Population Crash Underreported?

Another question increasingly raised by independent demographers concerns the accuracy of China’s official population figures.

Several researchers have argued that China’s true population may be tens of millions lower than official estimates suggest, citing discrepancies among census data, school enrollment figures, household registrations, and birth statistics.

Other respected demographers caution that China’s population remains extraordinarily difficult to measure precisely and that revisions are common after major censuses.

Has Beijing intentionally inflated its population figures?

It’s hard to know, but official demographic statistics serve political and economic interests.

Population size influences perceptions of labor supply, military manpower, economic potential, consumer markets, and China’s long-term geopolitical strength. Any significant downward revision would reinforce concerns about slowing growth and accelerating national aging.

China Is Growing Older Before Growing Richer

In any case, the broader trajectory is no longer in doubt: China is growing older before it grows richer.

The workforce will continue shrinking. Pension obligations will increase. Healthcare systems will face mounting pressure. Manufacturing competitiveness will become more difficult to sustain. Economic growth will increasingly rely on productivity gains rather than labor-force expansion.

Perhaps most importantly, demographics cannot be reversed with political slogans.

A Childless Future?

The CCP spent decades convincing its citizens that having fewer children was patriotic, responsible, and necessary. It succeeded beyond expectation.

Now, it is asking those same citizens to reverse course—precisely at the moment when economic uncertainty, high living costs, and declining optimism make family formation less attractive than ever.

Of course, in the years to come, this reality will shape China’s economy, military capability, and global influence, perhaps even the survival of the CCP.

A government powerful enough to shape a nation’s reproductive choices for 40 years has discovered that it cannot easily persuade people to dream bigger than the future they believe awaits them.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.