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China social media thrashes one-child policy after population control czar dies
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on December 25, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Quick Summary
China's one-child policy faces social media backlash after Peng Peiyun's death. The policy's impact on population decline is a growing concern.
Social Media Criticizes China's One-Child Policy After Peng's Death
BEIJING, Dec 25 (Reuters) - The death of a former head of China's one-child policy has been met not by tributes but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week.
State media praised Peng Peiyun, head of China's Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as "an outstanding leader" in her work related to women and children.
The reaction on China's social media to Peng's death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive.
"Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there" in the afterlife, one person posted on China's popular micro-blog Weibo.
China's near-universal mandate of just one child per couple from 1980 through 2015 prompted local officials to compel women to undergo abortions and sterilisations.
Beijing launched the one-child policy as leaders worried about population growth potentially spiralling out of control. But China's population, long the world's highest, later slowed and last year tumbled for the third year in a row.
"If the one-child policy had been implemented for 10 years less, China's population would not have plummeted like this!" a Weibo post said.
After falling behind India's in 2023, China's population declined last year to 1.39 billion. Experts warn the downtrend will accelerate in coming years. Data for 2025 will be released next month.
As population czar, Peng focused her commission's work on the countryside.
In rural China, large families were once seen as a goal for couples looking to ensure that they would be taken care of in their old age. Sons who could carry on the family name were also favoured, leading to unwanted infant girls and even aborted female foetuses.
"Those children, if they were born, would be almost 40 years old, in the prime of their lives," one person posted on Weibo.
By the 2010s, Peng had publicly shifted her views, saying the one-child policy should be eased. Now Beijing is trying to boost the flagging birth rate with childcare subsidies, longer maternity leave and tax benefits.
The shrinking and greying of the population has spurred worries that the world's second-biggest economy will struggle as the number of workers declines. Rising costs from elderly care and retirement benefits will also likely create additional budgetary strains for already indebted local governments.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Editing by William Mallard)
Key Takeaways
- •Peng Peiyun, former head of China's one-child policy, dies.
- •Social media criticizes the one-child policy's impact.
- •China's population decline raises economic concerns.
- •Beijing now offers incentives to boost birth rates.
- •Experts warn of accelerated population downtrend.
Frequently Asked Questions about China social media thrashes one-child policy after population control czar dies
1What is the one-child policy?
The one-child policy was a population control measure implemented in China from 1980 to 2015, restricting couples to having only one child to curb population growth.
2What is population decline?
Population decline refers to a decrease in the number of individuals in a population, which can result from lower birth rates, higher death rates, or emigration.
3What is a birth rate?
The birth rate is the number of live births per 1,000 people in a population over a specific period, typically a year.
