China’s population rebound faces structural limits |
When China implemented its one-child policy in 1980, it also raised the barriers to marriage and made divorce easier. Later, in 1991, the government introduced the “one-vote veto” system, which linked party cadres’ promotions to meeting population-control goals. These moves, coupled with coercive measures such as forced abortions and enormous fines for having more than one child, efficiently contributed to the rapid decline of the fertility rate from 2.3 in 1990 to 1.22 in 2000.
That trend has proven difficult to reverse. Now with one of the world’s lowest fertility rates, China is widely expected to adopt a range of pronatalist policies in a bid to escape this trap. The country does seem to be moving in this direction. In May, to facilitate marriage, China allowed couples to wed anywhere in the country, as opposed to their place of residence. So far, it seems to be working: The policy change immediately produced a 22.5% year-on-year increase in marriages in the third quarter of 2025.
But this positive effect will be short-lived. Consider what happened when China introduced a mandatory “cooling-off” period for divorcing couples in 2021: Divorces fell from 4.34 million in 2020 to 2.84 million in 2021, but then climbed back to 3.51 million in 2024, with a further 6% year-on-year increase in the first three quarters of 2025. After a brief rebound, marriages will resume their downward path, owing to the steady decline in China’s childbearing-age population and the persistent oversupply of men.