China is confronting the long-term consequences of what has often been described as the largest social experiment in human history. For more than three decades, the one-child policy reshaped family life, gender norms, and population growth in the world’s most populous nation. Now, as El Pais reports, the country is paying a steep price in the form of a deepening demographic crisis that has become one of Beijing’s most pressing challenges.
Introduced as official state policy in 1980, the one-child rule sought to curb population growth at almost any cost. Through fines, penalties, and administrative pressure, the government dramatically reduced birth rates, particularly in urban areas, where by the early 1980s nearly all families had only one child. The policy succeeded in slowing population growth, but it also produced profound social scars, including forced abortions, abandoned children, and generations of girls disproportionately targeted in a culture that favored sons.
As the population pyramid gradually inverted and the number of elderly citizens swelled, the policy itself became a liability. In 2016, Beijing formally ended the one-child rule, allowing couples to have two children, and later three. The shift was framed as an attempt to rebalance demographics and slow aging. Yet nearly a decade later, the strategy has failed to reverse the trend. China’s fertility rate has continued to fall, hovering around one child per woman, far below the level needed to maintain population stability.
Personal stories illustrate both the legacy and the limits of the policy. Urban parents like Ma Li, who raised her only daughter under the assumption that she would have no siblings, describe how state-imposed birth control shaped women’s lives. In rural areas, enforcement was looser, and families sometimes circumvented the rules through unregistered births or informal arrangements, reflecting the uneven reach of state power across China’s vast territory. These experiences have fed into a broader shift in attitudes toward marriage and parenthood.
The demographic consequences are now stark. China’s population began shrinking in 2022 for the first time in decades and was overtaken by India as the world’s most populous country in 2023. United Nations projections suggest the population could fall by more than half by the end of the century, threatening long-term economic growth as a shrinking workforce is asked to support a rapidly aging society. President Xi Jinping has elevated demographics to the level of national security, warning that population trends can shape the rise and fall of great powers.
In response, authorities have pivoted from control to encouragement. A “new culture of marriage and parenthood” is being promoted through longer parental leave, tax incentives, childcare subsidies, and expanded daycare services. Bureaucratic barriers to marriage have been eased, and local governments have staged mass weddings and even offered on-site registration at festivals and tourist destinations. Hospital childbirth costs are set to be largely covered by public insurance, while contraceptives, once subsidized, are becoming more expensive.
Yet many experts remain skeptical. Demographers argue that China’s low fertility mirrors trends seen across developed East Asia, where high living costs, job insecurity, and changing social values have discouraged childbearing. Scholars cited by El Pais note that the one-child policy accelerated these shifts, embedding norms in which having only one child—or none at all—became socially acceptable. Once established, such attitudes are difficult to reverse through financial incentives alone.
The legacy of the policy is complex. It contributed to severe gender imbalances, leaving tens of millions more men than women, but it also transformed women’s lives. With fewer children competing for resources, women gained greater access to education and economic independence. For many in the younger generation, fulfillment is now defined less by family size and more by career, autonomy, and personal choice.
