Ten years ago, on January 1, 2026, China got rid of its one-child policy, which had been in place from 1979 to 2015 to keep the population from growing too quickly. The country is still losing people and facing an aging crisis, even though it has switched to two-child and then three-child policies.
To slow down the rapid growth of the population, the government put the one-child policy into effect across the country in 1980. This meant that most urban families could only have one child. Fines, job losses, forced abortions, and sterilizations were used to enforce the law. This raised human rights concerns and stopped an estimated 400 million births. The policy favored sons, which messed up the sex ratios, but rural areas and minorities were given exceptions.
On January 1, 2016, China lifted the one-child rule, allowing families to have two children. This was done out of concern that the workforce would shrink and that caring for the elderly would become more difficult. In 2021, the rules were relaxed even more to allow three children, but this did not lead to a significant increase in births. The population continued to decline until 2024. Cash bonuses, housing subsidies, and maternity leave are all ways to encourage a “pro-birth culture,” but young couples say the costs and work pressures are too high.
The policy made the population pyramid “top-heavy” by allowing sex-selective practices that led to 35 million more men than women. In the 1990s, birth rates fell below replacement levels, which sped up the aging of society, where fewer workers support more retirees. Recent data shows a small rise in births in 2024, but experts don’t think it will last because the economy is slowing down.
