Can China Stop Its Demographic Slide? Can the United States?
Can China Stop Its Demographic Slide? Can the United States? RAND l Apr 23, 2026
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.
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