Henan's provincial government, in a notice jointly issued by the CPC Henan Provincial Committee's Organization Department and five other departments, ordered leading officials on August 6 to visibly take their full annual leave, to signal that all workers are entitled to paid time off without career penalty; the policy codifies entitlements by seniority, sets triple daily wages for unused leave, and introduces flexible leave-combination schedules; ecns.cn reports that multiple Chinese provinces are rolling out similar paid-leave policies explicitly aimed at converting time off into consumer spending

China recorded 7.92 million births in 2025, less than half the figure from a decade earlier; 11.31 million deaths produced a net population loss of 3.39 million, the largest single-year decline in modern Chinese history; the total fertility rate fell to 1.0 children per woman, the lowest of any major economy, and the population of people over 60 reached 323 million, or 23% of the total

National Bureau of Statistics data released January 2026 show 7.92 million births against 11.31 million deaths, a net population loss of 3.39 million; projections imply the population will shrink by nearly 60 million by 2035