China's birth-rate push sputters as couples stay child-free

Beijing (AFP) Jan 7, 2026
Twenty-five-year-old Grace and her husband are set on staying child-free, resisting pressure from their parents and society to produce offspring, even as China strives to boost its flagging birth rate. A decade since China scrapped its stringent one-child policy and implemented a two-child policy in January 2016, the nation is dealing with a looming demographic crisis. The country's pop