The fertility rate plunged but by 1980, the CCP took it even further with the one-child policy. China’s fertility rate eventually dropped below the replacement level and after decades of low fertility, the CCP again tried to course correct. In 2016, the one-child policy became the two-child policy, and in 2021, they upped it to three. But still, the fertility rate dropped.

“They thought, ‘If we just take away the regulations, people will have more children and we’ll have a new demographic level growing up to help run the economy,'” Guthrie said. “And I think the cultural change was what the party underestimated because people didn’t immediately start having more children and bigger families. They thought, actually, a single child for two parents is the right number.” …

It’s the rapidly aging population that’s of bigger concern for China’s economy. By 2079, there could be more people outside the working-age population than in it, according to the UN’s medium estimate. That would mean a lot of dependents for a shrinking workforce to take care of.

[All of this was eminently predictable. Heck, we see it in the West too, in less dramatic terms, but China spent decades enforcing low-fertility activity, both legally and culturally. Their safety-net hangover will quickly become the worst in the world — and that’s on top of an already stagnating economy, thanks to Xi’s re-injection of Maoist economic policies. — Ed]