Jesús Fernández-Villaverde@JesusFerna7026
I have been posting repeatedly on X about the extraordinarily fast collapse of births across the planet: in rich and poor countries, in fast-growing and slow-growing economies, in religious and secular societies, under right-wing and left-wing governments, with high taxes and with low taxes. The pattern is universal.
I knew this trend would continue. Still, the figures released this morning left me genuinely speechless. China’s government announced on Monday (see screenshot below) that births in 2025 fell to 7.92 million, a staggering 1.62 million fewer than in 2024, and that the total fertility rate has dropped to 0.93.
Few economists have been more forceful than yours truly in arguing that births are collapsing, yet even I was surprised by these numbers. I was forecasting around 8.5 million births, not 7.92.
To put this into perspective: if China could somehow sustain 7.92 million births per year from now on, its population would eventually stabilize at roughly 625 million, far below today’s 1.405 billion. In reality, as smaller cohorts reach childbearing age, births will fall well below 7.92 million. Hence, 625 million is a very generous upper bound, even under implausibly optimistic assumptions about life expectancy.
Put differently, there were fewer births in China in 2025 than in 1776, the year the United States declared independence.
I am still trying to process these numbers. This is the defining issue of our time.
