Deaths outnumbered births in China last year by almost 1.5m, while the number of marriages has almost halved since 2016.

The country’s just released population figures for 2024 show 9.54 million births and 10.93 million deaths, a decrease of 1.39 million.

The 530,000 additional births in 2024 births in 2023 were due to a 12% increase in marriages in 2023 after the end of the three-year Zero-Covid policy, but it is not arrested the sharp decline in the marriage rate.

But since then, marriages fell 16.6% in the first three quarters of 2024, including a 25.3% drop in the third quarter. The full year is projected to see a fall of 18.8%, meaning births will plummet in 2025, with little over 7 million expected.

There was an increase in the number of births in China by 5.8% to 9.54 million in 2024.

This put the total fertility rate at 1.10 children per woman about half what is needed for a population to simply replace itself.