China faces a problem that could strain its government, undermine its security, and sap its economic energy.
It isn't having enough babies.
That may seem like an advantage for the United States, China's main rival. But fertility rates are slipping here, too. Researchers at RAND have been studying what China's demographic future will look like, and what the United States can learn from it.
If China can't stop its slide despite its authoritarian control, they concluded, then the United States is likely going to struggle, too. “What China is going through,” senior sociologist Michael Pollard said, “the U.S. will also, eventually, experience.”
One child: China enacted a strict one-child policy in 1980. It feared that larger families would soon strain its resources. But its fertility rate was already in steep decline by then. And it has continued to slump, even as authorities scrambled to prop it back up. China allowed two children per family in 2015, and three starting in 2021. Those new policies have not been enough to reverse the downward trend.
Security impacts: China is now on pace to end this century with 786 million fewer people than it has right now. That will have major consequences, RAND researchers found—for China and for its rivalry with the United States.
- Military security: China is building a sophisticated, technologically advanced military to compete with the United States. It won't need as many recruits as it does now, researchers concluded—but it will need better recruits. And as its workforce tightens, the best-qualified young people might find they have better options than military service.
- Economic security: China's workforce isn't just shrinking; it's also getting older. Pension and health care costs will soon start to squeeze government budgets. China will have fewer young workers trying to support an ever-growing cohort of retirees.
China is now on pace to end this century with 786 million fewer people than it has right now. That will have major consequences.
An aging workforce might also become less innovative and dynamic, researchers noted. That could cost China in the global race for AI superiority. But those same workforce pressures might also drive greater Chinese investment in AI and robotics.
- Regime security: All this will become a growing preoccupation for China's ruling Communist Party, RAND researchers found. It will be caught between an older generation that is vocal and growing, and a younger generation that is increasingly disillusioned. Many young workers are already pushing back against what they see as unsustainable work expectations.
“The speed at which China's population is declining is really quite alarming,” said Jennifer Bouey, who holds the Tang Chair in China Policy Studies at RAND. “It's going to have huge implications for China's aging care and future economic development.”
Lessons learned: China has declared itself a “fertility-friendly society.” It has expanded maternity leave and subsidized childcare. Yet it has left the implementation of these policies largely up to local and provincial authorities. Some areas now provide cash payments and free milk for every child. But support is uneven across regions, and fertility rates have not recovered.
The United States can learn from China's missteps, RAND researchers found. China has worked hard to convince more people to want children. That hasn't worked. It might have more success, researchers concluded, if it focused more on lowering barriers for people who already want children.
That would require more than free milk. In surveys, people in China often cite the high cost of housing, the lack of childcare, and other quality-of-life concerns as reasons they're not having children. Women worry about the costs to their careers. Those same concerns would sound just as familiar in New York as in Beijing. And as China has learned, economic incentives and changing attitudes have not been enough to overcome those more-structural challenges.
The United States can learn from China's missteps.
“Chinese leaders know this is a problem that needs to be addressed,” said RAND policy researcher Tahina Montoya. “They're trying different approaches and policy angles, but they haven't been as successful as they hoped. There's something to learn from that. Addressing demographic challenges will require a multi-pronged approach.”
Bigger context: U.S. fertility rates are still well above those in China. But they've been falling for decades, a trend partially offset by high immigration numbers. Like China, the United States is no longer having enough children to maintain its population.
In fact, more than half of the countries in the world have fallen below what demographers describe as the replacement rate. The causes are many: Economic concerns. Lower child mortality rates. More opportunities for women, who have better control over when to have children. The U.S. fertility rate hit a record low in 2025, due in part to steep reductions in teenage pregnancies.
The challenge will be to prepare for what comes next, when population numbers stop growing year after year. “Demographics sometimes get sidelined as a soft issue,” RAND political scientist Kelly Atkinson said. “But demographics influence economic security and national security. They influence international engagements, the workforce, the military—all these things that governments and the international community need to be thinking about.”
The United Nations expects global population numbers to peak sometime in the second half of this century. Then they will do something that governments around the world have not experienced for centuries. They will start to slowly, but significantly, drop.
