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Rod D. Martin@RodDMartin · Jun 8, 2026

🧵 China’s population collapse is now mathematically irreversible. There simply aren’t enough women left of…

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Summary

China's population decline is mathematically irreversible due to the One Child Policy's cascading effects on female demographics. With a fertility rate around 0.92 and shrinking cohorts of childbearing-age women, China could lose 60-75% of its population by 2100, undermining its superpower status regardless of current government incentives to boost births.

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  1. #1

    🧵 China’s population collapse is now mathematically irreversible. There simply aren’t enough women left of childbearing age. Even if the fertility rate magically returned to replacement level (2.1 children per woman) tomorrow, the country would still lose more than 40% of its population by 2100. It won't. The real number is 75%. There's nothing like it in history. 🧵

  2. #2

    2/ Official estimates say China has only ~190 million women of childbearing age. That number is much higher than reality. The One Child Policy (1980–2016) and its echoes slashed entire generations. Sex-selective abortions made it worse. The cohorts now entering prime childbearing years are themselves the children of the one-child policy — already a drastically smaller group. Each generation compounds the previous deficit.

  3. #3

    3/ The numbers are brutal. Population has fallen for four straight years. In 2025: just 7.92 million births vs. 11.31 million deaths — a record natural decline outside Mao’s famine. Births dropped another 17% in 2025, hitting the lowest level since 1949. Total fertility rate is now ~0.92 (some estimates as low as 0.84).

  4. #4

    4/ Projections paint a dire picture: • Rhodium Group: annual decline widens to 7.6 million by 2035 → nearly 60 million lost in a decade (size of France). • UN: could fall as low as 663 million by 2100 • More realistic demographers like @fuxianyi put it at just ~310 million. That means the U.S. will be larger than China. And it's too late to reverse course.

  5. #5

    5/ Major cities show the future. Beijing’s 20–29 age group collapsed from 4.6 million (2015) to 2.5 million (2024). Shanghai had 107k births vs. 164k deaths in 2025. Coastal provinces are only “growing” via internal migration, not births. The elderly tsunami (211 million aged 65+ plus 325 million aged 50–64) is just beginning.

  6. #6

    @fuxianyi 6/ The CCP knows this. Xi has pushed marriage, cash bonuses, extended maternity leave — even removed tax breaks for contraceptives. None of it has worked. You can't subsidize women who were never born into existence. And there simply aren't enough women.

  7. #7

    7/ This is not just a demographic crisis. It’s the end of China’s superpower dream. A shrinking workforce, collapsing taxpayer base, exploding retiree burden, and a hollowed-out consumer market. The One Child Policy was horribly immoral. But it may also have been the CCP’s greatest strategic mistake — and one with no fix. Read all the details on my site. Link in bio.