Demographic concerns continue to grow for China

Getting old before getting rich? That could be the new stigma that China finds itself in as its population fell for a third straight year in 2024. Xi Jinping tried to persuade the nation with a shift towards “common prosperity”, hoping to drive a change in social thinking that arguably reached peak angst during Beijing’s handling of the Covid pandemic. But that hasn’t paid off, at least for now.

• China’s population fell last year – the first time since 1961 (2023)
• China allegedly tries to keep it hush on growing demographic worries (2024)
• China’s population fell in 2024 for the third straight year (2025)

To be fair, the shrinking population isn’t just a phenomenon that is isolated to China. Many parts of the world are also facing a similar demographic problem. The reason why China stands out is that this is coming so quickly after they ended the one-child policy that was implemented from 1979 to 2015.

The tail end of that period already outlined a worrying trend for China, which has only persisted further in the past decade.

But putting that together with growing social pressures, it exacerbates everything from lifestyle satisfaction to quality of life management. And that is leading China down this path of an aging population, with certain quarters of the younger generation even preferring to move abroad.

Amid concerns of domestic demand being dead in the water, the demographic consideration here won’t help much with the outlook over the next decade or so. Sure, this might not matter all too much in the immediate term. But the worst-case scenario is one that we all have come to be familiar with, that being the “lost decade” in Japan.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.