--- title: Can China’s Baby Bust Be Reversed? Don’t Count On It description: President Xi Jinping may want to foster a "childbearing culture" but demographic trends are incredibly hard to reverse. canonical: https://time.com/6341316/china-baby-bust-demographics/ author: Collin Meisel article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-12-01T13:44:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T16:46:25.189Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Can China’s Baby Bust Be Reversed? Don’t Count On It og:description: President Xi Jinping may want to foster a "childbearing culture" but demographic trends are incredibly hard to reverse. og:url: https://time.com/6341316/china-baby-bust-demographics/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6e0dbf091f0b596b/698a42d909208fbf1641afcd/GettyImages-1246299498.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: China Population Decrease in 2022 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Can China’s Baby Bust Be Reversed? Don’t Count On It twitter:description: President Xi Jinping may want to foster a "childbearing culture" but demographic trends are incredibly hard to reverse. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6e0dbf091f0b596b/698a42d909208fbf1641afcd/GettyImages-1246299498.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Can China’s Baby Bust Be Reversed? Don’t Count On It > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=d16517a4-62b8-49a8-a30d-6d5952d61635&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) by [Collin Meisel](https://time.com/author/collin-meisel/) ## Collin Meisel Dec 1, 2023 1:44 PM UTC  A nurse helps a newborn bathe in Huaian Maternal and Child Health Hospital, East China's Jiangsu province, Jan. 13, 2023\. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Jan. 17, China's population reached 1.411 billion at the end of 2022, 850,000 fewer than at the end of the previous year. A nurse helps a newborn bathe in Huaian Maternal and Child Health Hospital, East China's Jiangsu province, Jan. 13, 2023\. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Jan. 17, China's population reached 1.411 billion at the end of 2022, 850,000 fewer than at the end of the previous year. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images by [Collin Meisel](https://time.com/author/collin-meisel/) ## Collin Meisel Dec 1, 2023 1:44 PM UTC In late October, Chinese President Xi Jinping [told](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/world/asia/china-communist-party-xi-women.html?smid=url-share) the National Women’s Congress that “We should actively foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture.” Such a statement is rich coming from a man, especially one who leads a party that for decades actively and sometimes brutally enforced family planning policies. It is also delusional: In all probability, China’s baby bust cannot be reversed, at least not anytime soon. For one, increasing fertility rates in China would require bucking a well-established global [trend](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-fertility-rate-vs-level-of-prosperity) that when living standards rise, fertility rates tend to fall. Rising incomes often come with changing values and different lifestyle realities, particularly that children are less likely to need to support household incomes. The only country that stands as a marginal outlier is the tiny African nation of Equatorial Guinea—which, with a population of 2 million and a GDP of $28 billion, is hardly a helpful test case to China’s 1.4 billion-person, nearly $18 trillion economy. **Read More:** [_China’s Population Is Shrinking—and Graying. Here’s What It Means for the Future_](https://time.com/6248728/china-population-decline-aging) Secondly, significant efforts to increase birthrates elsewhere have been tried for years and have largely failed. Despite introducing tax [incentives](https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/Tokyo%E2%80%99s-latest-plan-to-boost-birth-rate-Pay-people-100-000-yen-per-baby-they-give-birth-to), [investments](https://qz.com/1646740/japan-wants-to-raise-its-fertility-rate-with-new-perks) in childcare and education, and public service [announcements](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/nov/29/japan-sexual-health), the Japanese government’s years-long struggle to boost birth rates has borne little fruit—its [fertility rate](https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/factbook-2015-2-en.pdf?expires=1698942888&id=id&accname=ocid177442&checksum=CF62069FACEC7F932544A49E4C4C9D2D) of 1.26 is well below the replacement rate of 2.1. This should come as no surprise. [Several](https://www.jstor.org/stable/40722227) academic [studies](https://www.nber.org/system/files/working%5Fpapers/w13700/w13700.pdf) have found that tax incentives have “[positive, but very small](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20130243)” effects on family planning decisions. One 2018 [study](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6300274/) of alternative forecast scenarios found that only fertility rates “far above replacement levels” and “unprecedented, ultimately unrealistic, volumes of migration over coming decades” would reverse Japan’s population decline. The paper cites estimates that Japan’s population will decline from around 125 million as of 2014 to 97 million in 2050 in a base-case scenario. South Korea, France, Australia, and Russia are among other countries that have tried to reverse population declines with [limited success](https://artsci.tamu.edu/news/2023/06/south-korea-has-the-lowest-fertility-rate-in-the-world-and-that-doesnt-bode-well-for-its-economy.html#:~:text=South%20Korea%2C%20along%20with%20many,to%20rely%20heavily%20on%20immigration.). Put simply, demographic trends are stubborn things, and hard to reverse. **Read More:** [_China Is Desperate to Boost Its Low Birth Rates. It May Have to Accept the New Normal_](https://time.com/6306151/china-low-fertility-trap-birth-rate-policies/) But Chinese policymakers will press on. The China Family Planning Association has [introduced](https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202305/12/WS645def8ca310b6054fad2ac4.html?utm%5Fsource=Sailthru&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=China%20Brief:%20Why%20Beijing%20won%E2%80%99t%20engage%20with%20Washington&utm%5Fterm=china%5Fbrief) “pilot cities” that “will focus on a range of tasks which include promoting getting married and having children at adequate ages, encouraging parents to share childbearing responsibilities, and curbing the high costs of betrothal gifts and other outdated customs.” As with Japan, certain “[miracle towns](https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-08-16/japan-miracle-town-birth-rate-depopulation-crisis)” may emerge that are backed by incredibly robust incentives, but a nationwide turnaround is far more difficult. Our [base-case forecast](https://www.ifs.du.edu/IFs/frm%5FGraphicalDisplay/%22Total%20Fertility%20Rate%2c%20History%20and%20Forecast%22/True/0/%22China%22/0/0/1/2100) at the University of Denver’s Pardee Center for International Futures projects that China’s best efforts will produce only marginal gains. Some China-watchers have [speculated](https://link.foreignpolicy.com/view/644279e6aced183da612d148ivq84.4sj/557ce366) that the ruling Chinese Communist Party could take the dramatic step of resorting to abortion bans. However, [such bans](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/3415/#:~:text=Abortion%20restrictions%20don't%20lower%20rates%2C%20report%20says%20%7C%20CNN,according%20to%20a%20new%20report.) may simply push women toward less safe methods and will likely do little to change fertility rates, to say nothing of the major reproductive-rights rollback that would entail. Yet even if China somehow does defy past trends and manages to boost its national fertility rates substantially, it will take nearly two decades to pay off as babies born today finally enter the workforce. Meanwhile, its top-heavy “constrictive” [population pyramid](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/population-pyramids-compared/) thanks to a decades-long one-child policy—which was only abandoned in 2016—will mean increasing old age dependency and the social and economic costs that come with it. **Read More:** [_China’s Aging Population Is a Major Concern. But Its Youth May Be an Even Bigger Problem_](https://time.com/6284994/china-youth-unemployment-aging-demographics/) The U.S. has been spared a similar fate than China—all thanks to [immigration](https://www.cato.org/blog/census-finds-us-population-will-decline-without-immigration#:~:text=In%20the%20low%20immigration%20scenario,328%20million%20to%20320%20million.). The more than 1 million immigrants who come to the U.S. every year are a key underwriter of U.S. [national power](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-immigrants-are-americas-superpower/), leaving aside the thorny domestic politics around immigration policy. Like the U.S., mass immigration is the only plausible short-term fix for China’s population crisis. But China under Xi has no interest in a Western-style melting pot—like elsewhere in Asia including Japan—that brings in millions of immigrants. He has spent years promoting a [Han Chinese national identity](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/world/asia/xi-jinping-china-nationhood.html). To what extent China’s baby bust will have implications for the country’s ability to engage in a sustained great-power competition with America [remains to be seen](https://www.stimson.org/2023/spheres-of-influence-in-the-coming-decades-four-alternative-scenarios/). In all [likelihood](https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/preparing-for-chinas-rapid-rise-and-decline/), the demographic headwinds China is straining under will begin to undermine its national power in the coming decades, even if China’s [strength](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10670564.2022.2071879) and [influence](https://www.stimson.org/2023/spheres-of-influence-in-the-coming-decades-four-alternative-scenarios/) continue to grow in the meantime. What is certain is that if China continues to rise as the world’s leading geopolitical player, it will be in spite of what has to date been an enormous advantage: its behemoth population. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6341316/china-baby-bust-demographics/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6341316/china-baby-bust-demographics/"},"headline":"Can China’s Baby Bust Be Reversed? 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