To reiterate as this question enjoys an end of life blooming of new participants, this market resolves on what China reports for itself.

I'm still buying NO these days because the price is good, but there isn't going to be a debate that China says it's more than 2023 but we think it's less. What they say is what it resolves to.

@JoshuaWilkes What do you think the real probability is, firstly of China reporting more and the second of there being more

@nathanwei will happily discuss after question closes

https://x.com/mi233695/status/1865443926338871609

https://x.com/BirthGauge/status/1864021028600443268

BirthGauge predicts a TFR increase 1.02 -> 1.05

@nathanwei Now 1.10

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/chn/china/birth-rate

The current birth rate for China in 2025 is 10.310 births per 1000 people, a 1.6% decline from 2024.

The birth rate for China in 2024 was 10.478 births per 1000 people, a 1.57% decline from 2023.

UN estimates indicate the past trend of fewer births will continue.

@Vorak UN estimates are garbage

@Vorak This website says in 2024 China has 1,425,178,782 people and 10.478 births per 1000 people. That gives over 14.9 million births. I think it's safe to disregard this website.

@Vorak It this website was accurate China would have had almost 15M births in 2024. Absolute garbage statistics.

@nathanwei happy to be wrong. It's a worrying trend for any nation. I just think "Dragon Babies" aren't sufficient to justify this level of confidence a multi decade trend will reverse.

@Vorak Korea reported more births this year. I agree that Chinese births long-term will not recover, but for this one year it can go up.

The resolution criteria AI summary seems clearly wrong, the comment in question is unrelated to the 9.02 million number.

@GrassomannGrassomann good catch

https://x.com/mi233695/status/1873765840082084242

China's birthrate is not going to recover anytime soon, but this year had more births because a lot of people think it's good luck to have a "Dragon Baby".

@nathanwei not to dispute that this may very well resolve YES, but those numbers refer to Henan alone obvs

@JoshuaWilkes *Hunan

@JoshuaWilkes Obviously. But they seem indicative of a positive trend. Very unlikely for a regional spike that large and yet a continued national decline.

Fascinated by the question of China's population growth over the coming decades. They might the have state capacity to pull off a "2.1 Children policy". But no idea about the delta between any two given years.

Unfortunate that there aren't more people betting here, but I guess that explains why the number was so low.
I don't feel comfortable betting this above 50% but my odds are still around 65%. Every year that government efforts to raise birth rates fail, implies they'll feel like doing something big the next year (unless 4 years pass, at that point that clearly indicates that we aren't going to see results, but right now it's been only <2 years since the outbreak and lockdowns).

The regime has incentives to fix the birth rate problem because they care a ton about FDI in the near term. IDK how the export priority affects this, but long-term growth prospects boost FDI in the near-term.