China lost 3.4 million people in 2025. Births are now lower than during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The government has no answer for it.

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Zuljo@reddit

@Mods - this is a lazy AI summary post and it's not even correct.

Government has no answer for it? Do you live in a cave without the internet lol? The largest migration in modern history of people from the countrysides to the cities has happened and created a concentration of services, healthcare, and labour power which is the answer to this 100%.

This sub has gone downhill so much it is insane. People will post anything.

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SurroundedByMachines@reddit

You're the only parent comment to point this out. Unfortunately it seems like most folks on Reddit read a headline and make assumptions without any basic critical analysis. I've definitely noticed it more on this sub too.

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lavapig_love@reddit

Ok, please post some counter arguments. It's an open conversation. :)

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SurroundedByMachines@reddit

AI slop channel and post

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--Ano--@reddit

Less people on this planet is the solution, not the problem.

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LandRecent9365@reddit

Abolish capitalism is the answer

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RandomBoomer@reddit

We've been on this course since the invention of agriculture. Capitalism doesn't help, by any means, but it's not the root cause. It's a transient problem, anyway, since collapse of infrastructure and environment will take down capitalism as well, but its absence will not feel like a good thing by that time.

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LandRecent9365@reddit

If agriculture is the problem, why did indigenous civilizations manage the land for thousands of years without causing a global mass extinction? Is it the 'farming' that's the problem, or is it the fact that we've turned the entire planet into a giant 'Extract-for-Profit' machine (capitalism)?

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BellaRyder2505@reddit

Yes! Amazing news!

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RandomBoomer@reddit

Yes, it IS a big deal because it's going to be a painful transition to lower population levels. The government sees this as an issue that needs to be fixed, but I'm more philosophical about it. This is the price we pay as a society for a much-needed population reduction that will -- eventually -- provide other benefits (fingers crossed).

As an old person with health issues, who is not aging gracefully, this isn't some academic situation to be pondered intellectually. It's a very stark warning of what probably lies ahead for me in the next few years.

I never had children and I have no remaining family in this country. All my friends are my age or older, so it's not like they can come do the chores my wife and I can't handle any more. We're increasingly reliant on a neighbor of ours, which is ironic because he's in his 60s, so not exactly a spring chicken himself. He needs the extra money, we need the extra help for yardwork, so it's working out really well, but he's not someone we'd count on for nursing care.

I'm as prepared as I can be for the possibility that my last months or even years of life will be very difficult and uncomfortable. But I keep telling myself that my personal suffering is in service of a Good Thing: fewer people in this world.

I believe very strongly that a population reduction is the right direction, and I am willing to pay that price at a personal level.

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

I will soon be in a very similar boat. I hear you.

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ConfusedMaverick@reddit

Yeah, it's good news from the big picture perspective

But it's also bloody difficult deal with a declining, aging, and increasingly dependent population. The young have too many people to support, while the old don't get as much support as they really need.

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BlueGumShoe@reddit

Yeah thats the problem. Less people straining Earth's resources is a good thing in the long run but how do you maintain societal institutions. Not sure what we're going to do.

Like you say going to be very hard on the elderly. Especially in nations like the US where everyone is so isolated.

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

There are ways to adapt, the rich just won’t like it. Worst case scenario, just give us the quietus, many want it anyway, and if they don’t now, they will then. We’re less religious and superstitious than we used to be.

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RandomBoomer@reddit

The rich won't like it means that the rich won't cooperate with these ways to adapt. And after a point, money really isn't going to help solve the problem of too little labor available to care for old people. No amount of money is going to fix this issue.

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

You do have a point. But it’s also still worth pointing out that when people act like the only way to humanely deal with this is by increasing the population, that’s simply not true. It’s more so a matter of what the wealthy want.

And with automation, robotics and “AI” leaving increasingly fewer white collar/office career paths, it looks like caregiver jobs will some of the few opportunities left. With fewer children there will be less need for daycare, teachers and coaches, the relative increase in elder care would absorb at least some who would otherwise go into those roles.

And euthanasia is cheap compared to long term care. A lot of people really don’t actually *want* to hang on past the point when they’re unable to wipe their own butt or recognize their loved ones. They especially won’t want to in the world that is coming. Remove the stigma and make it freely available with more reasonable guardrails.

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thehomeyskater@reddit

What is quietus

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RandomBoomer@reddit

Perfect timing for Stephen Miller to start making the U.S. a whites-only nation. He's actively making a bad situation even worse.

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Vdasun-8412@reddit

No..no lo es..

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senator_turtle@reddit

Why is everyone saying this is good as if it means the world population is shrinking? The global population is still rising, this is just for China. The UN is projecting the population at 10+ billion people by the 2080s. Mainly led by India and Sub Saharan African countries.

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thechilecowboy@reddit

And that's a good thing! We already have at least 7.5B people more people than the planet can handle. The number one environmental problem is...too many people. Waaaay too many.

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SplashTarget@reddit

The problem isn't overpopulation.

It's entirely possible (with efficient use of current technology) to give everyone on Earth a decent living standard (DLS) using 30% of the energy that was consumed in 2019.

The world used 163,695 TWh of energy in 2019 (136,678 TWh of which came from fossil fuels)

The population was 7,776,892,015 in 2019

49,109 TWh is enough to give all those people a decent standard of living (it amounts to 6,314,669.14 Wh/person or ~6.3MWh/person).

For 2019, 163,695 TWh is enough for ~25.9 billion people (163,695 TWh / (6,314,669.14 Wh/person)) .

In 2024 the world used 176,737 TWh of energy (142,420.90 TWh of which came from fossil fuels).

We had a population of 8,118,835,999 in 2024.

Using the ~6.3MWh/person standard, the amount of energy needed to give everyone on Earth a DLS in 2024 was 51,268 TWh.

For 2024, 176,737 TWh of energy is enough for ~28 billion people to live comfortably.

We have a problem of overconsumption, and poor distribution.

We need to stop doing BAU so that we don't end up in the worst case scenario.

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almodsz@reddit

That's just energy, though. Energy consumption is a poor indicator of overpopulation.

No matter how you turn and twist it: The reason everything is falling apart all around us and the entire biosphere is dying is that the Earth is overpopulated with humans.

The world's 3,400 billionaires -- while being massive polluters that should not exist -- aren't single-handedly eating the oceans barren. We use over 70% of the planet’s ice-free land, about a quarter of which has been degraded, primarily for agriculture. And crucially, this obscene land use occurs despite our maximally efficient industrial agriculture powered by fossil fuels. We're talking optimized to such a degree that food waste, despite its scale, is one of our lesser problems. Habitat loss, the primary driver of biodiversity collapse, is largely an agriculture story.

What we need is a coordinated program of radical austerity. This would entail:

Forced urbanization into high-density megacities to minimize land use
Nearly eliminating private consumption
Enforcing a one-child policy worldwide
Providing subsistence-level nutrition based on low-impact food sources, such as algae or insect protein

We could possibly make that work long enough for the population to shrink to a sustainable level. It would obviously be terrible, but it beats the alternative. It doesn't have to be exactly this program, but we need something equally drastic. That said, it won't happen until we experience some catastrophic mass casualty events driven by climate change. People need to witness some real, hard-hitting events before they'll be open to something like this.

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GardenScared8153@reddit

You spent quite a lot of time at the WEF, are you their spokesperson?

The last thing we need is more megacities and shipping goods from half way across the world for low labor costs(slavery), half the problem is megacities. We need medium density and proper urban planning around food forests somewhat the way of indigenous populations that lived on the american continent.

We need more agroforestry/small permaculture farms operated by small villages with their surplus going to cities. More local production of goods and services in harmony with nature using food forests as the backbone of the economy. It needs to happen in a gradual coordinated controlled way by states.

Population reduction is already happening as most countries have very low birth rates as not many can afford to bring a child to this world.

We need to stop eating meat the way we do today, synthetic lab grown meat from cells might be the answer. We will not eat ze bugs while you have steak on your yacht.

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thechilecowboy@reddit

I agree with everything you said, except for lab-gown meat. That's messing with Nature. And, by it's own nature, synthetic.

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GardenScared8153@reddit

lab grown meat is just simply creating artificial conditions for animal cells to multiply so you end up with meat without having to kill animals. You are not really messing with nature just simply mimicking nature's way of growing meat to get what you need without having to kill animals. Carnivorous advanced et races like the urma all rely on synthetic meat. The technology on earth is still in its infancy but it could potentially be the solution.

We could also get milk from cows with induced lactation as opposed to forcing them to give birth and so substantially reduce cow populations while maintaining our needs.

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almodsz@reddit

The last thing we need is more megacities and shipping goods from half way across the world for low labor costs(slavery), half the problem is megacities.

No one suggested shipping goods halfway across the world. Please respond to what was actually said instead of a position you made up.

High-density urban living consistently produces lower per-capita emissions, land use, and resource consumption. Land use being crucial, as the recovery of ecosystems and biodiversity depends on reduced human encroachment.

We need medium density and proper urban planning around food forests somewhat the way of indigenous populations that lived on the American continent.

That can't be done without a dramatic reduction in population. Feeding eight billion people currently requires fossil-fuel-synthesized nitrogen to make up for soils that can no longer support crops unaided, water drawn from aquifers that won't refill on any human timescale, and the conversion of what little wild land remains into farmland. Remove any one of those props and yields collapse.

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No_Aesthetic@reddit

Quite ironic to lionize indigenous ways of living on the one hand but then denigrate one form of that on the other (insect protein)

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SplashTarget@reddit

Energy consumption is a poor indicator of overpopulation.

The issue isn't overpopulation.

The issue is how things are done, the nature of the activity is the problem, not that there's too many people participating in the activity.

The reason everything is falling apart all around us and the entire biosphere is dying is that the Earth is overpopulated with humans.

We use over 70% of the planet’s ice-free land, about a quarter of which has been degraded, primarily for agriculture. And crucially, this obscene land use occurs despite our maximally efficient industrial agriculture powered by fossil fuels. We're talking optimized to such a degree that food waste, despite its scale, is one of our lesser problems. Habitat loss, the primary driver of biodiversity collapse, is largely an agriculture story.

The degradation from obscene land use is a consequence of destructive human activity.

The destructive human activity is being done for the sake of non-stop expansion of economic output.

We don't need to be so destructive, we can do way less than what we're currently doing, and be just fine.

The issue is the crazy economic system (that corporations and their government allies) insist must keep growing, not that we have too many people.

Imagine a ginormous apartment building with 1 million units, but only one thousand people, it has an elevator that can carry 1 million people.

Each person from the apartment (somehow) goes from having a normal weight to suddenly weighing 1010 lbs, assuming they don't die from this, and can move around, would the giant elevator be able to handle them if they all showed up at once?

If not, is it because the apartment building has too many people?

Or is it because the people are too heavy, and need their weight reduced.

What we need is a coordinated program of radical austerity.

No

We need to reduce economic output in the top economies/emitters of the world (while maintaining decent living standards) so that CO2 levels go down, and we (hopefully) avoid a whole lot of death and destruction.

This is done by ending wasteful economic practices that aren't really good for anyone, along with a crack down on the lifestyles of the rich.

-Crack down on industrial agriculture

-End interest charges on all loans

-Encourage/supporting worker strikes

-Reduce the work week, while maintaining the same pay

-Close non-essential businesses on weekends

-Promote remote work where possible (while adding worker protection)

-Increase taxes on rich people

-Discourage mansion construction

-Ban private jets

-End deforestation

-End luxury cruises

-Do international conferences online

-Ban fast fashion

-End (or damage) the tobacco industry

-End (or damage) the vaping industry

-Tax Land Value

-Put a carbon tax on products made by the biggest emitters of the world

-End stock buybacks

-End the carried interest loophole

-Reverse the tax breaks of Reagan, Bush Jr., and Trump

-End planned obsolescence

-Block corporations from buying houses/apartments

-Cap the number of houses a person can own

-Reduce reliance on cheap foreign workers

-Forgive foreign debts

-End student debt

-Reduce private debt burdens

-Crack down on payday lenders

-Promote postal banking

-End foreign interventions

-Reduce military spending

-Medicare For All

-Higher minimum wage

-Greater/easier unionization

-Public ownership of utilities

-Municipal broadband

-Vote by mail

-Expand public transit

-End monocrop agriculture

-More roundabouts

-Government jobs planting trees

-Government jobs making green beaches

-Crack down on monopolies/oligopolies, by enforcing antitrust laws

-Make things domestically when possible instead of importing from far away (ex. textiles)

-Reduce national speed limits for personal transport to 30mph

-Stop the AI data centers

We can have a decent standard of living for everyone currently living, we have to end the mismanagement to get it done.

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Necessary_Sea_7127@reddit

I wish you were in charge……..

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SplashTarget@reddit

ah thx

the only problem with my idea is that it requires the national government of the richest country in the world to take the issue seriously

and (until they're replaced) they're not going to take it seriously which means the governments below them will have to do it

but if they won't take it seriously

then we need collective public action

specifically 3.5% of the people in the richest parts of the country just stay home for some unknown amount of time, and back away from unnecessary spending, until the demands listed are met

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thechilecowboy@reddit

Nah. Light pollution, extinction of flora and fauna, destruction of the natural world, crowded cities, water disappearing, air pollution, loss of starlight, loss of national forests, refuge and off shore destruction from drilling. Extreme population is destroying all of this. And waaaay more. We need to manage resources as if they are finite - because they are. And we need to understand that people aren't the only ones who live on this glorious rock that we call home. Community-based economies - local food production, for example - are the best way to reel this in. And the best way to live in harmony with the world around us.

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SplashTarget@reddit

Light pollution, extinction of flora and fauna, destruction of the natural world, crowded cities, water disappearing, air pollution, loss of starlight, loss of national forests, refuge and off shore destruction from drilling. Extreme population is destroying all of this.

All that is because of overconsumption, specifically by the richest economies of the world.

There's a reason the spending habits of millionaires is incompatible with keeping the planet from going beyond 1.5C

Resources are finite, but they are also immense, the issue is improper/wasteful management.

The real reason this overconsumption is being done is because these countries are chasing after non-stop economic expansion.

Consider the period of 2019-2020

If you look at Energy Consumption (TWh), GDP, CO2, and population.

You know what you'll see?

Energy Consumption went down

Global GDP went down

Global CO2 went down

Population went up

The problem is the wasteful nature of the global economic system, a global system that's maintained by the governments doing the bidding of the richest people on Earth.

The top economies of the world (which are also the major emitters) should reduce their economic output while providing a decent standard of living to their people.

BAU is a recipe for disaster.

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Necessary_Sea_7127@reddit

I dont understand the downvotes here….

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No_Aesthetic@reddit

Doomerism is wanting to complain while simultaneously disregarding any and all potential solutions

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HowRu_123@reddit

Birthrates are collapsing everywhere.

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PotentialPower5398@reddit

Not in Central Asia

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

Or most of Africa. Weird how massive regions of the world with high and very young populations are just forgotten or left out of “everywhere” when this topic comes up.

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Taraxian@reddit

The downward trend is worldwide, the places you're naming still have birthrates that are high in the absolute sense but they're still significantly lower than ten years ago

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

They are not “collapsing”.

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RandomBoomer@reddit

Not yet.

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PotentialPower5398@reddit

Not even close though. They are the future of humankind for two or three generations. Especially that unlike africa, central asia has the potential to develop like China

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RandomBoomer@reddit

More power to them if that's the case.

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uatry@reddit

Cultures centered more around opportunity, personal liberty, and self-determination have seen the steepest declines in birthrate. Tradition-preserving cultures with a stronger religious influence on law and public life are the places where the decline hasn't been as steep, and even then, they're declining from where they were 10 years ago. They're simply in the middle of their "peak" right now, compared to decades ago when more developed countries hit theirs.

Turns out that when people realize having children isn't a requirement, and that they can pursue anything else instead, the vast majority never have kids.

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

I don’t think I’d go so far as to say that the *vast majority never have kids*. The majority just have fewer overall, even as few as one, while some still have pretty large families, and some have none, either by choice, lack of willing partner, or fertility issues.

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GalaxyPatio@reddit

Yeah at this point I have to start questioning how much of it is voluntary. I certainly don't want to bring kids into this and I know many feel the same, but I know just as many if not more who are, for some reason, very eager to still have kids.

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el_capistan@reddit

Voluntary for my partner and I. We have never wanted kids in general, but i cant even imagine changing my mind at this point. And almost none of my friends have kids. Actually the only ones that do are 5 to 15 years older than me and had kids pre-2016. And I have friends that have talked about wanting kids, they just cant justify going through with it.

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RandomBoomer@reddit

I jumped on the Child Free train in the 1970s, only we didn't have a name for it back then. Fortunately, as a gay woman, not having children was the path of least resistance, and as a social introvert I didn't have to justify myself to anyone because no one ever dared ask such a personal question.

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DrRatio-PhD@reddit

Geez, no one wants to ~~work anymore~~ condemn their children to a life time of serving vampire over lords anymore.

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huehuehuehuehuuuu@reddit

According to my Chinese coworkers, either your work life balance is crap, or your pay is crap, or if you are unlucky, both are crap. So you are too drained of all energy or savings or both to even properly date.

Plus many rural families murdered or aborted their daughters in the 80s and 90s. And China back then was mostly rural. That does make the surviving daughters very uneasy and choosy when picking a significant other. Don’t want to die to domestic violence from families who were ok with female infanticide after all.

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TooSubtle@reddit

Rural families were exempted from the one child policy if their firstborn was a girl. We have also since found most of the girls, their parents either adopted them out or simply didn't register them. They're appearing now because they're suddenly on marriage documents.

That's not me defending it or saying no babies died, having a shadow class of unregistered girls is frankly terrifying enough itself in its implications, but it's also fucked up that western media just assumed they were all broadly okay with infanticide this whole time. They were taking government figures that included every condom handed out as a death and spun a yellow peril baby killer story out of it because Asian communists are clearly more capable of those acts than we are. Meanwhile, China's gender imbalance is significantly less than Greenland's.

https://news.ku.edu/news/article/2016/11/22/study-finds-chinas-missing-girls-theory-likely-far-overblown

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Daintyfeets2@reddit

This. This is the reason. Beautifully worded.

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DissedFunction@reddit

voluntary for me. I try and keep quiet now amongst friends who are new parents or contemplating becoming one. But honestly, I don't know what they're thinking. environmental shifting is quickening. Predictions of temp change projected for 2040/2060 etc are happening now.

this summer might even be a blue ocean event.

we might have been slowly boiling frogs but I think many frogs are now realizing we're in a pot and the heat is rising.

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ErgoMachina@reddit

Voluntary for me. If you look at where the climate is going, we are looking at widespread famine in a couple decades and possibly the 6th mass extinction.

We already crossed the rubicon, and unless a technological miracle happens, there's no way to revert it either. And it's not like that will happen because we are already slaves to the algorithms managed by the few.

So yeah, I'm not bringing another soul to this planet because I know their life will be miserable as adults. It may be adoption for me and my partner.

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el_capistan@reddit

I'm sure that a technological miracle won't be used to save us even if it has the ability. Extinction in 1 or 200 years won't affect the billionaires negatively right now, so if stopping the miracle is better for their pockets they will do just that.

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asigop@reddit

Everyone i know that has tried to have kids in the last 10 years had to deal with some sort of fertility issue. Quite a few are unable to have kids at all.

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925525625@reddit

Yup and then so many losses of pregnancies + birth defects too

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huehuehuehuehuuuu@reddit

Animals do have an instinct on when not to have children because their environments have gone to utter shit.

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Sufficient-Bid1279@reddit

Just watched a great post where an individual said “can you imagine the level of trauma that has to be inflicted on humanity for them not to have children” and it hit me hard. It’s so true.

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scorpiomover@reddit

When countries prioritise short term over long term, so do their people and kids are a long term investment.

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Sufficient-Bid1279@reddit

Good point

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Xrider24@reddit

Mammals*

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Sufficient-Bid1279@reddit

You’re right, thanks for the correction…my memory is fried lol

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Dreadsin@reddit

I think about this a lot because I’ve never even considered having children to really be a possibility

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Sufficient-Bid1279@reddit

I am 45 and gay….there was a time I thought about it (with an ex) and now I am glad I didn’t. I could’ve bring them into this world , nor could I afford it. I can;t even afford bread, eggs, and milk.

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loralailoralai@reddit

And take into account in a lot of those places that have such trauma the women most likely have no birth control nor are they safe from getting pregnant against their will.

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Sufficient-Bid1279@reddit

It’s really sad. I do see pockets of humanity but there is also a lot of evil out there.

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thechilecowboy@reddit

Overpopulation also brings and increase in predators. So the animal kingdom has a mechanism to self-correct.

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schotte420@reddit

I know a couple of predators... Some of them lead countries..

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Shppo@reddit

interesting do you uave a source for this that i can read?

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huehuehuehuehuuuu@reddit

https://phys.org/news/2026-04-invisible-fertility-crisis-chemicals-climate.html
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13106040/
https://dairy.extension.wisc.edu/articles/dairy-cow-stress-and-strain-impacts-on-reproduction/
https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/news/16211-fly-infertility-shows-we're-underestimating-how-badly-climate-change-harms-animals

Well not quite just instinct. But environmental stress prevents mating and pregnancies and viable young and encourages “post birth abortions”. During the worst Australian wildfire years, there were mass cattle miscarriages. When resources are scarce, wild herd mammals have fewer births. Even after birth and successful hatching, birds will actively cull their own babies by chucking them out of the nest if they think there isn’t enough food.

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silent-sight@reddit

Microplastics, Pollution, Toxic Chemicals, Extreme Heat, Droughts, Monster Storms… no wonder.

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Jovan_Knight005@reddit

Or are in a decline. Those brith rates will continue to be in a decline as we get into summer months and then onto winter.

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drpyne89@reddit

Who wants to bring a child into this?

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Peak_District_hill@reddit

Do you realise how bad things must be to make mammals want to stop reproducing.

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incognitochaud@reddit

Did everyone get the same youtube short last night

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thehomeyskater@reddit

I didn’t

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Peak_District_hill@reddit

Instagram reel for me lol, that line stuck with me

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philokingo@reddit

mammals just want sex, not necessarily reproduce

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No-Papaya-9289@reddit

Remember, China is a special case, with their one-child policy that led to lots of girl babies being aborted.

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

It wasn’t the one child policy itself, it was all the misogyny that was still baked in from the pre-cultural revolution days of foot-binding and such.

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phwark@reddit

Not only misogyny but economics. In China, sons take care of the parents during their old age. Daughters do not. With only one child allowed, people wanted a retirement plan.

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

Yes but that was part of the baked in misogyny, the rigid gender roles and women being mostly excluded from commerce and property rights. All of that either is or has also been true of all most societies and is another part of the reason for high birth rates, trying for more boys when to pregnancies result in “too many” girls.

And (at least theoretically) it should have been nullified by the transition to a socialist society, with care for the elders being a social function instead of a private function.

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pyrotechnic15647@reddit

This is a contradiction between Chinese culture and socialist objectives that I find interesting. The traditional family unit holds a lot of weight there. It is above religion, ethics, economy, and perhaps even the state. This is in spite of Marxist theory, which explicitly recognizes the traditional family unit as a patriarchal tool used for economic exploitation of women and wealth accumulation for men. When we look at the many ways that the remaining cultural hegemony can contradict our goals for sustainable economic, the motive behind Mao’s Cultural Revolution make sense, although it was certainly a misstep in terms of execution. No wonder this dude was like, yeah, this fuck this old culture, I don’t care how long it’s been around or how deep it is. Unfortunately due to the lack of tact involved, I think the CPC has failed to socialize elder and family care.

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AlwaysPissedOff59@reddit

The male-female imbalance has been evening out lately. It's down to 104 males to 100 females.

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CheerleaderOnDrugs@reddit

India has a similar issue, due to a preference for boys forever.

Infanticide, sex selective (female) abortions

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Legitimate-Being5957@reddit

And also killed after birth… 😢

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burgerburgertaco@reddit

99% of all countries in the world have a falling birthrate, with almost every developed country in the world having below replacement rates. The one child policy barely moved the needle. If anything, China has one of the higher birthrates in east asia.

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Tearakan@reddit

Not really. They just forced it sooner. Japan, Korea have worse birth rates and birth rates are dropping in literally every country.

Even Africa has falling birth rates compared to what that continent usually has.

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Grand-Page-1180@reddit

There are plenty of answers, just no one wants to implement them.

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nickbe4@reddit

Good news for a change, the human population will shrink due to ecological overshoot but it’s better to do it voluntarily.

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battlemawl@reddit

I’m not sure why everyone is saying this is a good thing, it starts in china because they are a little more technologically advanced than us, but I foresee America having this exact same problem in the near future.

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Perfect-Whereas-1478@reddit

Ok, good? Overpopulation is bad.

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PhotographUsed1255@reddit

It is not a problem.

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karlmarx7@reddit

Chinese population of 1.4b does not add up. When you look at one child policy over 36 years, the math ain’t mathing.

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DonrajSaryas@reddit

It was never anything remotely close to fully enforced.

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Daintyfeets2@reddit

This might have something to do with the lack of women. Remember when China decided only boy babies were allowed to live? yeah. FAFO.

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DonrajSaryas@reddit

No I don't. A bunch of Chinese families individually decided that for cultural reasons. It was never policy and the government actively tried to discourage it.

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sovietarmyfan@reddit

If official Chinese numbers say 3.4 million, its probably way worse.

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jbond23@reddit

So what's the next 5 year plan? Because I feel sure China's top government is well aware of these problems.

For a while now it's felt like China is speed running the pre-industrial to post-industrial game. Doing in decades what the West did in centuries and then overtaking them.

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BeeComprehensive5234@reddit

Who tf wants to bring kids into THIS world!?!

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lowrads@reddit

I know lots of people with kids, and plenty without. What the people with kids all seem to have in common is a tendency towards self-absorption and overconsumption. Maybe they weren't before, but the burden of parenthood really beats them down.

I can see why precarity might not be an obstacle, but doing that sort of project without a village seems haphazard.

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Own-Medium5232@reddit

Sociopaths

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thicc-thor@reddit

And idiots

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BeeComprehensive5234@reddit

🎯

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lemonademilkshake_@reddit

"Erm well the world has always been bad and I want a mini-me!!!1!1!" /s

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Eager_PurpleOverdose@reddit

I really hate that argument.

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lemonademilkshake_@reddit

Right?

Like... okay so it's never a good time to procreate. How do they not see the irony?!

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Eager_PurpleOverdose@reddit

That, and right now we're facing something that has the possibility to lead us to extinction (climate change)

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Eager_PurpleOverdose@reddit

Narcissists

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eilif_myrhe@reddit

There is a dozens of countries with low birth rates now. The main thing that prevents we seem that many countries reducing populations is immigration. East Asia seems particularly vulnerable for the lack of immigration.

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Repulsive-Mall-2665@reddit

immigration doesnt work, just lowers wages for a few deecades and increases crime.

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here-i-am-now@reddit

The U.S. has had the opposite experience

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Repulsive-Mall-2665@reddit

Nice cope.

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lowrads@reddit

At this rate, they'll run out of people in just four hundred years.

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Dreadsin@reddit

Government cash incentives never work for birth rates

When I’m thinking of having a kid, I’m thinking of all the time I lose and 20+ years of expenses. I honestly don’t think I’d even consider having a kid for free money unless it was over 1m and obviously no government would do that

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PsudoGravity@reddit

Yes they do. Robotic workforce. Why do you think they're absolutely flooring it in terms of humanoid robotic development?

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GWS2004@reddit

I think reducing the birthrates over all in this world is for the best.

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Barbarake@reddit

I do too. I know many people worry about the economy, not enough young people, Etc. But the world's population cannot continue to increase forever, we have to face this situation at some point.

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SquirrelAkl@reddit

But in this post, in China’s situation, they have too many young people for the jobs they have. 16-21% youth unemployment (at a minimum).

There’s a similar picture in Western countries too: young people can’t get jobs, especially with all the AI replacement of humans that corporates are trying to do.

So tell me again why a shrinking population is the problem?

Oh right, it’s not. The problem is with the tax systems. Governments think that they need a growing base of tax payers to support a growing elderly retired population, but this could be fixed in other ways. Like appropriately taxing the mega rich.

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olduseryounguser@reddit

Do you think our earth is healthy?

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Hilda-Ashe@reddit

Why don't they, you know, just tax those AI-employing corporations? If AI do human jobs, AI should pay human taxes.

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AlwaysPissedOff59@reddit

Could also be fixed by welcoming immigrants with open arms, especially those with needed skills.

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daveintex13@reddit

there won’t be enough workers available to wipe my bottom when i’m in the nursing home. my only hope is “they” develop robots to do all the tasks i’ll need done.

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DrRatio-PhD@reddit

Maybe the problem is people expecting to live in a state where they need other people wiping their bottom instead of just moving on with dignity.

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daveintex13@reddit

yikes! that would be a lot of people! i’m gonna keep hoping for the robots. cheers!

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lemonademilkshake_@reddit

we have to face this situation at some point

Exactly. It always confuses me when people always retort with "Well what about my pension, who will take care of the elderly if we're to die out, etc."

How about we actually create new solutions instead of relying on unsustainable endless growth on a planet with finite resources?

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Sarah_Cenia@reddit

Well said.

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Freud-Network@reddit

What people don't want to face is "them" having a larger culture and population than "us". For many, losing economic and cultural dominance due to decline is unacceptable.

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

“They” have such an enormous lead on “us” in that regard, and have for such a long time, that it’s pure fantasy to imagine that it could ever be otherwise. As with any “arms race” it’s not really “winnable” anyway. It doesn’t turn out well for anyone, except perhaps the few individuals at the very, very top of the heap.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-regions-with-projections

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GWS2004@reddit

And reduce our consumption with it.

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ShivaAKAId@reddit

There is a theory that China’s population is not only over-estimated, but over-estimated by hundreds of millions. Local governments are incentivized to count more population to get more federal-level funding. For example, a migrant worker is counted in his home town even though he’s moved for work because he legally still lives there. Likewise, a migrant worker is counted in his work town because he’s physically there.

The over-estimates are so egregious that some say China’s population might be under a billion already. To get around the fake population numbers, foreign intelligence often uses sophisticated tricks to get a more accurate count. The best such method is sale of table salt. Every soul needs a minimum amount of salt. You measure the national sales of salt in China and you get a minimum amount of people actually living there.

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bernpfenn@reddit

table salt is the real indicator. good 💭

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jiayux@reddit

What’s especially astounding is how fast the collapse of birthrate happened. There were 17.23 million newborns in 2017 and that figure shrank to 7.92 million in 2025 — more than halving in merely eight years! This appears unprecedented, like the birthrate decline in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan were much slower.

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GlobalUncoveredMedia@reddit (OP)

https://youtu.be/f_BBtM-bbNk

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FamiliarIsland@reddit

Ass video

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rematar@reddit

How much of that is created by AI? I don't see any sources. There's one particular part that's not explained; 60 million people will vanish.

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FamiliarIsland@reddit

Where’s the link?

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E5VL@reddit

China has partial answer problem. Automate as much a possible to reduce reliance on the meat bags.

But alas that is only part of solution.

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tface23@reddit

The planet cannot support the population it has for much longer

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bjran8888@reddit

You foreigners used to say there were too many Chinese people, that we’d use up all the world’s resources, and that China would be doomed.

Now you’re saying there aren’t enough new births in China, and that China will be doomed.

What else are you going to come up with next?

Stop spouting your hypocritical nonsense and mind your own business.

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InitialAd4125@reddit

Let it fall let it fall let it shrivel up and fall.

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CrackingToastGromet@reddit

Going out on a limb here …could it be the world’s leaders have turned the whole damn planet into a shithole that only works and benefits the super wealthy with no signs of stopping? Maybe because we see kids born today would inherit a system where they are more likely in a feudal peasant system, as subjects to be ruled instead I’d as citizens to govern?

I mean, I acknowledge I could be wrong but it sure as hell feels that way from where I’m sittin’

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Extreme-Homework-697@reddit

This has gone on for millennia. It started with monarchy. This isn't anything new.

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godzillachilla@reddit

Man. It's gotta be pretty awful to stop mammals from making more mammals.

Between patriarchy making it's extinction burst, pollution, and struggling for resources, nobody wants to reproduce.

I certainly don't and don't know anybody who does.

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Logridos@reddit

I voluntarily removed myself from the gene pool. I don't understand how anyone can bring children into this world knowing they will have a far worse life than any previous generation.

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Jovan_Knight005@reddit

As a man, i'm thinking about not marrying and having children in the future. Not the with the situation that the world is in.

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Logridos@reddit

You don't have to abstain from marriage, having a partner you can trust and rely on definitely makes life easier. Just need to find someone that shares your outlook.

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Repulsive-Mall-2665@reddit

patriarchy as if there arent dozen of women who are just as cruel and neoliberal as men as rulers, so many examples.

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slayingadah@reddit

That is called power adjacency. It's still the patriarchy.

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M_M_X_X_V@reddit

Yeah Margaret Thatcher, Alice Weidel or the new PM of Japan are hardly what anyone would consider to be feminists.

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thechilecowboy@reddit

Excellent answer! Yes.

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ansibleloop@reddit

Yep, I don't know why anyone who's paying attention would want to bring life into this shit world

And that's just how things are now - imagine 20 years from now telling them "yeah I knew it was bad an getting worse but I still chose to have you"

Selfish IMO

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sporkafunk@reddit

There is only one unconditional love in humanity, and it's the of a child for their parents. Having children in all phases of capitalism/egoism has always been selfish. Most parents I know are at minimum mildly emotionally abusive.

Paradoxically the ones that see this would probably make better parents, but they know how much their potential children would suffer with very little we as parents could do about it. I could never purposely or unwittingly do that to a child, after everything I've been through.

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slayingadah@reddit

When i was younger, it was just a cool saying- "death to the patriarchy". But the more I read about matriarchal societies, the more I'm convinced that the beginning of the end was when men figured out they had something to do w contraception. This killed the divine feminine and with it, any chance of a peaceful, harmonious existence w nature.

DEATH TO THE PATRIARCHY.

Of course, we are beyond all that now. But it's nice to imagine what it would be like if the matriarchal worldview had stuck with us.

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muddaFUDa@reddit

Even before patriarchy / matriarchy is the deeper problem of duality. When we forgot we are the world and the world is us all of this became inevitable.

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slayingadah@reddit

I think duality and matriarchy go hand in hand. When we center the weakest in our society (children, the elderly), we think a lot about the connectedness of ourselves w the world.

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IncredibleBulk2@reddit

Mind-blowing that there are 65 million empty apartments and young people can't afford it. These are solvable problems

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eliquy@reddit

Not if the apartments aren't located where the jobs are

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Taraxian@reddit

Especially an issue with China's hukou system (which, ironically, was originally intended to make homelessness a thing of the past)

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bluedelvian@reddit

Behavioral sink, we've known about it for decades, and we know how to fix it, by fixing it would make less money for corporations and adversely affect the pyramid gambling scheme known known as central banking so the trend will continue.

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NihiloZero@reddit

This will generally be presented as a problem or hardship for China, but it truly may be the opposite.

And if techno-industrial civilization is somehow going to continue chugging along, as it always seems intent to do, then... yeah, China might be okay. They have more and better robots than anyone else in the world. If robots prove efficient enough and are sustainable enough... then humanity won't need giant factories filled with human laborers. I mean, we don't "need" that now, but... my point is that relatively high standards of living, and even technological progress, don't necessarily require a large population. In fact, a massive and growing population can be a detriment in many ways. Even militaristically... a large population simply isn't as important as it once was. It's not even like China would be depopulated -- they'd just have a shrinking population and more labor done by robots.

But honestly, I don't think we're going to get an ideal scenario in any form. The fact that we already live in a world with robot armies and a collapsing environment... makes me think we're probably not headed in a good direction. The Gibsonian corporate dystopia will also continue to develop, and that will likely be about the peak of techno-industrial civilization before environmental collapse.

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caldazar24@reddit

Giant real estate bust, tens of millions of vacant apartments, and young people can't afford housing?

Sounds like China does an even better job of subsidizing Boomers and their real-estate investments than the US does. This problem is self-correcting eventually...

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faithOver@reddit

If this is remotely close to reality it’s difficult to overstate how much less consuming the Chinese economy will continue to do.

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thehomeyskater@reddit

That’sa good thing right?

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nooneneededtoknow@reddit

Yes and no. Long term really good. Short term bad. Immediate consequence is economic downturn, job losses, which ultimately means not being able to afford basic necessities. The people who suffer is always the poor and middle class.

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filmguy36@reddit

Because like everyone else in the world, the young don’t see a point in bringing children into this collapsing world

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Kent955@reddit

It's pollution

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Hollocene13@reddit

That’s the answer everywhere. Organisms don’t reproduce when the environment can’t support it.

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existing_for_fun@reddit

This but also: humans don't WANT to reproduce if the environment feels hostile.

That hostility can be due to government policies, required work hours, low pay, etc.

I know that technically "environment" can cover psychological reasons too, but I wanted to call it out specifically.

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darkpsychicenergy@reddit

Women, at least, typically don’t want to. That’s why we still have very high birth rates in some of the most hostile, unstable, inhospitable and resource scarce parts of the world where women, incidentally, also have little to no access to contraception or even basic human rights.

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existing_for_fun@reddit

I know you say women don't want to, and I agree with that.

But it's also increasingly true that men also don't want to in many developed nations. OR I should say, they do WANT to but choose not to if the economic situation isn't deemed sufficient.

I know personally, I got a vasectomy because my wife and I decided together that we didn't want to have children and while there were multiple factors, one was economics.

My point is that it's not JUST women. But I still agree with your overall point.

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Tearakan@reddit

Yep. It happened in human history during severe economic turmoil or starvation periods. It's effectively a trauma response.

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Kitchen-Paint-3946@reddit

This is so overlooked, I learned as a kid, why some mammals have 4,5,6 + babies at once but some just one.. dove deep into it and environment, stress all of this affects it

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Tearakan@reddit

In some cases of starvation or extreme stress women sometimes just stop having their periods.

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Sevsquad@reddit

Some of the most polluted places in the world have some of the highest birth rates, and some of the least polluted the lowest. Population decline is a multi-faceted issue, but I've never seen any credible evidence that pollution had much of anything to do with it. Largely education and access to contraceptives reduce the fertility rate more than anything, and then in super low nations it often has to do with high education and access to contraceptives mixed with a highly misogynistic culture.

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Kent955@reddit

Rich people have more pollution in them as they buy more plastic and convince

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HuckleberryPee@reddit

Have you not seen the rivers filled with plastic and trash in parts of India, Bangladesh, and africa?

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ishitar@reddit

It's several converging factors. Social media, death of optimism (rightly so), pollution, increasing complexity and opportunity cost evaluation.

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Sarah_Cenia@reddit

This is positive news. There are plenty of excess humans in the world, and climate change is only going to create more refugees. So any underpopulation in China is a policy problem, not a biological problem.

The minute they decide to welcome immigrants, their demographic issues can be solved.

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humanoidtyphoon88@reddit

"excess humans" ???

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Sarah_Cenia@reddit

Well my opinion is that most of us are. Humanity’s resource consumption far exceeds the Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources, across multiple parameters. A healthy human population for planet earth would be more like 2.5 billion in my opinion, and none of those would be flying in private jets or living in McMansions if it were up to me. (Which is why I’m not having children, and try to minimize my ecological footprint.) And no, I’m not an eco-fascist who thinks some draconian measure needs to be taken. I DO support universal education and access to birth control, however, both of which will result in lower birth rates over time.

What I meant in this particular case — maybe I could have picked a different word — is that there will be increasing numbers of people who for a growing set of reasons will be unable to survive or thrive in the place where they are, due to such factors as famines, lack of job opportunities, or having their homes destroyed by war or climate disasters.

For example: if you get evacuated from your home, your temporary solution may be to crowd in with relatives in the next town. But that town may not have resources to support a suddenly burgeoning population. Or perhaps there is a regional famine, and life is no longer even viable there. That is what I meant by “excess people.” Immigration may provide a better life to some of these refugees, if returning to their place of origin becomes impossible.

As I said in another comment, we don’t know what is coming down the pike, and any of us may find ourselves in that situation someday. It just seems best to promote the most humane solutions that can help the greatest number of people to achieve a minimally decent life.

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imminentjogger5@reddit

and what happens to that generation of migrants when they don't want to have kids either because they're going to be subjected to the same if not worse external pressures in their host countries?

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Sarah_Cenia@reddit

I kind of agree with you, but I mean, have you noticed what sub we are on here? The world is changing, and fast. Huge areas which are now populated are going to become unsuitable for human habitation, within our lifetimes, either due to changing climate or to coastal areas soon being underwater. I honestly think that the kinds of pressures and destabilizing effects that this will have on societies will be far, far more significant than some demographic issues.

In general, I assume that the increasing scarcity of resources will make a smaller or shrinking population more advantageous than it is now. Societies will have an easier time weathering the coming crises if they are not always operating at maximum capacity.

I’m not a sociologist; that’s just my common sense supposition.

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imminentjogger5@reddit

so how exactly does the problem of increasingly scarce resources get solved by bringing in more people to consume more resources?

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Sarah_Cenia@reddit

All your comments seem to suggest that you have an anti-immigration agenda. Just keep in mind that you yourself may be a climate refugee one day; few of us are going to be spared from the ecological catastrophes that are coming. The place where you live now might become unlivable for some reason, and you might yourself be forced to seek a new home.

So I would like to answer your question with a question: do you think the correct way of dealing with future climate refugees is to force them all to die?

Or do you think that places with declining birth rates and housing to spare should offer asylum to some of the people displaced by disasters and famine?

I find it so odd that people decry immigration on one hand and declining populations on the other… like, pick one; you don’t get to complain about both! 😅

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imminentjogger5@reddit

You haven't answered my question. How does mass migration solve dwindling resources? I'm not decrying declining population though. I want population decline across all countries.

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Sarah_Cenia@reddit

So do I, but I also believe in being humane when possible. So while I would not demand that countries be forced to increase their populations with immigration if they do not want to, it just seems like a win-win for those with declining populations to take some refugees.

It gives their economy some buffer from the reduction of workers in the economy, and provides careers for the elderly, etc.

As you yourself said, these immigrants may also choose to have less children, so the society may continue to shrink, just more slowly. I think that a population which is slowly declining in size will be more stable than one declining precipitously in size.

It doesn’t solve dwindling resources, it redistributes people to where the resources are.

You didn’t answer my question either.

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SplashTarget@reddit

The problem isn't overpopulation.

It's entirely possible (with efficient use of current technology) to give everyone on Earth a decent living standard (DLS) using 30% of the energy that was consumed in 2019.

The world used 163,695 TWh of energy in 2019 (136,678 TWh of which came from fossil fuels)

The population was 7,776,892,015 in 2019

49,109 TWh is enough to give all those people a decent standard of living (it amounts to 6,314,669.14 Wh/person or ~6.3MWh/person).

For 2019, 163,695 TWh is enough for ~25.9 billion people (163,695 TWh / (6,314,669.14 Wh/person)) .

In 2024 the world used 176,737 TWh of energy (142,420.90 TWh of which came from fossil fuels).

We had a population of 8,118,835,999 in 2024.

Using the ~6.3MWh/person standard, the amount of energy needed to give everyone on Earth a DLS in 2024 was 51,268 TWh.

For 2024, 176,737 TWh of energy is enough for ~28 billion people to live comfortably.

We have a problem of overconsumption, and poor distribution.

We need to stop doing BAU so that we don't end up in the worst case scenario.

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WloveW@reddit

What new issues would be created by mass injection of completely different cultures into a monoculture like China?

It doesn't sound to me like that would make for a peaceful society.

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Sarah_Cenia@reddit

Lots of issues. Some negative, some positive. I don’t want to downplay that it would be a big deal. But it’s still a viable solution to their demographic challenges. And letting in some climate refugees would certainly be more humane than letting them die in famines in other places.

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imminentjogger5@reddit

you're downvoted but everyone wants mass migration as a demographics solution except in their own countries

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Vdasun-8412@reddit

No le pidas a un usuario de este subreddit que piense..puede que COLAPSEN

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PlausiblyCoincident@reddit

This is exactly the reason they have pushed for humanoid robots. They need someone to work in the factories as their population declines.

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Space--Buckaroo@reddit

Is reduced birthrates a bad thing?

Maybe less people will be a good thing.

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lemonademilkshake_@reddit

Maybe? Less people will absolutely be a good thing

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ItzHymn@reddit

Less humans, means less human suffering, what the problem?

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AwakePlatypus@reddit

Good.

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mrsduckie@reddit

I see this collapsing birthrate screaming and running around or being pushed in a stroller. It's just the fact that teenagers started using protection and teenage pregnancies are at all-time low. People in their 20s have kids less frequently, but they do have 2-3 kids in their 30s. I hate this narrative that we have birthrate collapse and it's going to fuck older generations. Maybe it's time to change the system to support people, not corporations and billionaires. Not llms, HUMANS.

Edit: I live in a 1st world country.

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sherilaugh@reddit

I expect a lot of it has to do with many people solely socializing online now. It's hard to get pregnant over wifi

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ven-dake@reddit

The world needs a reduction in.people , like Presto!! We should rejoice. It isn't playing into end stage consumerism, and boy are those billionaires panicking ( so much that elon musk wants to skedaddle the planet all together) they know climate collapse is going to be brutal.the world needs a extreme reduction of people !!

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Free_Broccoli_1174@reddit

New "documentaries" every week! Thanks AI!

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illusive-man-00@reddit

Everyone already knows removing women from their role as nurturers and caregivers of the next generation is the root cause of all this.

This is all by design and If you don't know that you're a fool lol.

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Own-Medium5232@reddit

Now that they have choice, a lot of women choose not to breed with misogynists. Too many still do, unfortunately.

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Competitive_Shock783@reddit

Good! Less people, less strain on the planet's finite resources. Only good can happen!

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porterbot@reddit

We still don't know the real population nor how many people died from.covod19 due to opacity driven by Xi.

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megalynn44@reddit

Answer? I thought they wanted to lower their population- thus all those decades of 1 child policy.

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imminentjogger5@reddit

Maybe all countries should be shrinking their populations

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SplashTarget@reddit

No

The top economies of the world (which are also the major emitters) should reduce their economic output while providing a decent standard of living to their people.

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Saturn_winter@reddit

I cant believe i saw Japan in the title and then eyes glazed reading the stats and thought this was a post about Japan for a second, which says 2 things, 1, dont open reddit when I'm still waking up in bed, and 2, this is a pretty global issue when the reasons given are always the same and the country tied to it is pretty much interchangeable

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Saturn_winter@reddit

"The government has no answer for it."

It's called stop being so insanely racist and xenophobic and start loosening immigration. But I guess Japan would rather die alone inside their Japanese only bars before they let other people in to stabilize their economy and help them.

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No-Papaya-9289@reddit

You leave out the most important factor here, The fact that China's long one-child policy meant that girl babies were aborted at very high rates. This is still occurring, and the ration of men to women is still higher than normal. This is why China is now trying to get people to have more than one child. But since just about everyone grew up as only children, it seems normal to not have more than one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-ratio_imbalance_in_China

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burgerburgertaco@reddit

This is a non-factor. South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan didn't have this issue, their birthrates are still lower than China. Japan also didn't have this policy, and their birthrates are only slightly higher than China. In fact, literally all of the developed nations have below replacement rates. East Asia just has the worse of it.

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