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Xinyi Wu

Even a significant recovery in China’s fertility rate would still fail to slow down the country’s ageing process before 2050, a new report has found, though achieving higher birth rates remains critical to preventing a more severe crisis later.
“A rapid increase in China’s ageing population rate before 2050 is inevitable,” wrote analysts led by Li Xunlei, chief economist at Zhongtai Securities, in the report.
Under an optimistic scenario in which China’s total fertility rate rose to above 1.3 from the current level of about 1.05, the share of the population aged 65 and over would still reach 29 per cent by mid-century, according to the report.
That trajectory would closely mirror Japan’s current demographic profile, which ranks as the world’s most heavily aged society.
According to United Nations demographic standards, a total fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman is generally required to maintain a stable population over the long term – without relying on immigration. Major economies across East Asia, however, have seen their rates fall significantly below this baseline.
Although raising the fertility rate to 1.3 would not slow China’s demographic ageing in the short term, the report’s authors noted that it would significantly ease the dependency ratio – which measures the economic burden on the workforce by comparing the share of children and retirees to the working-age population. In this scenario, the ratio would sit at 74 per cent by the end of the century, according to the report.
Conversely, if fertility rates continued to decline, the ratio could reach 120 per cent by 2100, leaving the country with more dependents than working-age citizens.
China is grappling with a deepening demographic crisis, the result of historical family planning rules and rising economic pressures that continue to deter young people from having children.


Its total population fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2025, with the birth count plummeting 17 per cent to a record low of just 7.9 million, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.
Authorities have rolled out a series of measures to incentivise marriage and childbirth, including extending marriage leave in various provinces and launching a national childcare subsidy scheme.
The Zhongtai Securities team argued that pro-natalist policies were likely to be more effective in rural areas and small towns where living costs were lower, and when they targeted families who already had one child rather than couples who chose to remain childless.
“Policies designed to encourage these people to marry and have children will certainly be less effective than those aimed at encouraging families who are willing to do so to have a second or further children,” the analysts wrote, adding that supportive policies should be introduced to reduce the cost of raising multiple children.
The report’s authors also noted that gender imbalance could prove a major constraint on raising birth rates, highlighting that the cohort born between 2006 and 2010 – which will enter the marriage market over the next few years – had about 20 per cent more males than females.
Women also account for a greater share of individuals with higher education, leaving women even more under-represented in lower-educated groups.
The study concluded that addressing these social challenges, such as the difficulty lower-educated rural men face in finding partners, remained essential to raising the fertility rate.


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Raising the fertility rate above 1.3 still remains crucial to preventing a far worse scenario later in the century, analysts say


Raising the fertility rate above 1.3 still remains crucial to preventing a far worse scenario later in the century, analysts say.


China’s population ageing seen as ‘inevitable’ before 2050. Why push more births?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Raising the fertility rate above 1.3 still remains crucial to preventing a far worse scenario later in the century, analysts say

Raising the fertility rate above 1.3 still remains crucial to preventing a far worse scenario later in the century, analysts say