China’s Shrinking Families

Dramatic demographic changes are underway in China that will shape the country’s economic, social, and geopolitical outlook for decades to come. These much-discussed shifts include a slump in the numbers of working-age people, the rapid aging of the population, and a growing gender imbalance with men significantly outnumbering women. Yet one absolutely momentous demographic trend has attracted far less attention: the coming transformation of the Chinese family structure.

In the span of a generation, Chinese families will be much thinner than ever before. Extended kinship networks will atrophy across the nation, and many people will no longer have close