# demographics
Latest news and articles about demographics
Total: 5 articles found
Tokyo’s Fertility Rebound: How Big Cash and Free Services Are Turning Babies Into a Public Good
Tokyo’s bold package of cash payments, free services and subsidies — financed at roughly ¥2 trillion a year — appears to have nudged births higher in 2025 after years of decline. The metropolis’s experiment suggests that reducing the explicit and implicit costs of childrearing can influence fertility, but it raises questions about fiscal sustainability and regional divergence.
China’s 2025 Marriage Spike: Policy Changes and Folklore Produce a Likely One‑Year Bounce
China saw a sharp increase in marriage registrations in 2025—driven by a removal of hukou limits in a revised Marriage Registration Ordinance and auspicious lunar‑calendar timing. Analysts warn the rise is probably a temporary rebound and that deeper economic constraints will determine longer‑term marriage and fertility trends.
China Doubles Down on Recruit Outreach as 2026 Conscription Drive Kicks Off
Chinese military recruitment agencies have launched an intensified, varied publicity campaign for the 2026 early conscription period, using campus fairs, household visits and public ceremonies to promote enlistment and veteran benefits. The effort seeks to counter demographic challenges and support the PLA’s modernization by making service both materially attractive and socially prestigious, with particular emphasis on outreach in frontier and rural areas.
China Scrambles to 'Stabilize' Births as Population Falls Below 1.41 Billion
China recorded 7.92 million births in 2025 and a population decline of 3.39 million as the government pivoted from loosening birth limits to actively seeking to stabilise new births. A mix of cash subsidies, preschool support and administrative reforms has helped marriages rebound, offering a possible short-term boost to births, but structural demographic forces make a large, rapid reversal unlikely.
China closes the '14th Five' with 5% growth — industrial upgrade and exports bolster a still-fragile recovery
China reported 5.0% real GDP growth in 2025 and declared the goals of the 14th Five-Year Plan achieved, driven by gains in high-tech manufacturing, exports and services. Yet consumption remains tepid, fixed-asset investment — particularly in property — has fallen markedly, and demographic decline and external uncertainty pose medium-term risks.