TMTPOST -- China added 7.92 million babies in 2025, representing a birth rate of 5.63%, according to statistics released on Friday. During the year, 11.31 million people died, resulting in a mortality rate of 8.04‰, according to the Statistical Bulletin on the Development of China’s Health and Health Services in 2025 released by tthe National Health Commission (NHC). China’s total population stood at 1.40489 billion at the end of 2025, according to the bulletin.   Over the past five years, China’s annual number of births from 2021 to 2025 was 10.62 million, 9.56 million, 9.02 million, 9.54 million, and 7.92 million, respectively. In other words, after China’s birth rate rose by 0.38 percentage point in 2024 compared with the previous year, it fell again in 2025. The natural population growth rate also remained negative. Previously released data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that China’s natural population growth rate was -0.99‰ at the end of 2024, with the total population declining. According to the bulletin, by the end of 2025, China’s natural population growth rate had fallen further to -2.41‰. Among newborns, boys continued to outnumber girls, although the gender balance showed marginal improvement. China’s sex ratio at birth was 111.5 in 2025, meaning that for every 100 baby girls born, 111.5 baby boys were born during the same period. This was slightly above the United Nations’ benchmark range of 103–107, but represented a year-on-year decline of 0.2. China’s demography increasingly exhibits the characteristics of a declining birth rate and an aging population. Since 2021, when the proportion of China’s population aged 65 and above first exceeded 14%, formally placing the country in the category of a moderately aged society, the proportion has continued to rise. According to the bulletin, by the end of 2025, people aged 65 and above accounted for 15.9% of China’s population, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from the previous year. Not only was the year-on-year increase larger than the 0.2-percentage-point rise recorded the previous year, but the gap between the share of the population aged 0–15 (16.4%) and the share of the elderly population narrowed to just 0.5 percentage points. Against this backdrop, the Department of Planning, Development and Informatization of the NHC said that in 2025, China’s policies supporting childbirth were gradually improved, while key health indicators continued to improve, providing strong support and safeguards for economic and social development. In terms of health indicators, the bulletin shows that China’s life expectancy at birth reached 79.25 years at the end of 2025. The maternal mortality rate fell to 13.4 per 100,000 live births, while the infant mortality rate declined to 3.8‰. In terms of support for childbirth, “increasing the supply of childcare places through multiple channels” was included for the first time in 2025 among the eight practical initiatives undertaken by the health system to serve the public. According to the bulletin, by the end of 2025, China had 4.73 childcare places for children under the age of three per 1,000 people. This not only exceeded the target set by the NHC at the beginning of the year—4.5 childcare places for children under three per 1,000 people—but the county-level coverage rate of childcare services also reached 98.8% during the year. Specifically, by the end of 2025, there were 126,000 childcare service institutions nationwide, an increase of 10.5% from the previous year. The total number of childcare places reached 6.657 million, up 16.0% year on year. The number of childcare workers reached 1.431 million, an increase of 13.1% from the previous year.