No more ‘dragon babies’: why China’s birth figures are set to resume their downward spiral

China should prepare to see its birth numbers tumble again this year, as 2024’s slight uptick is likely to prove just a temporary blip in an inevitable process of long-term population decline, demographers warned.

Last year, births in China rose for the first time since 2017, reaching 9.54 million, up from 9.02 million the previous year.

Experts attributed the rebound to a rise in marriages in 2023 and the fact that 2024 was the auspicious Year of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac, with some parents waiting to conceive in the hope of giving birth to a “dragon baby”.

The increase in births was greeted with celebrations in Chinese media and speculation that the government’s raft of pro-birth policies may be starting to pay off. But experts argue the broader trend of population decline is unlikely to be reversed.

While the full-year figures have yet to be released, China looks set to record its lowest annual number of marriage registrations since 1980 for 2024.

In 2023, China saw marriage registrations rise by 845,000 to reach 7.68 million – the first uptick recorded in nearly a decade.

However, during the first nine months of 2024, only 4.75 million couples tied the knot, a 16.6 per cent drop compared to the same period in 2023, according to China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs.