Numbers That Speak for Themselves
In 2025, marriage registrations in China fell below 6 million — the lowest since 1980. That same year, only 9.54 million babies were born, marking the third consecutive year of population decline. South Korea's total fertility rate hit 0.72, shattering its own world record. Japan's births dropped below 700,000 for the first time in 2024.
Every time these numbers come out, the comment sections all sound the same:
"Housing prices are insane — who can afford kids?" "Raising one child costs $300,000. Can you swing that?" "I can barely take care of myself. Why drag another life into this?"
Economic pressure is part of it, sure. But think about this — in 1960s China, per capita GDP was under $100, and families had five or six kids without blinking. The poorest countries in Africa have sky-high fertility rates.
Poverty was never the reason people stopped having children.
The real reason is this: our generation has been indoctrinated with a new religion — money is everything.
And when money becomes the sole measure of all things, marriage and childbearing inevitably become an ROI calculation. If the numbers don't add up, you simply opt out.
Shame the Poor, Not the Corrupt
There's an old Chinese saying: "People mock poverty, not prostitution." We thought it belonged to a bygone era. But it has never been practiced as openly and shamelessly as it is today.
A young person earning $500 a month, renting a room, taking the subway to work — on social media, they're invisible. Nobody cares if they're kind, if they show up every day and give their best, if they'd take a bullet for a friend. Their only label is: poor.
Another young person driving a luxury car, living in a mansion, posting photos of fine dining and designer brands — as for where the money came from? Nobody asks. Nobody wants to ask. Even if everyone knows it's dirty money, the verdict is usually: "Well, at least they've got hustle."
This isn't an isolated phenomenon. It's a systematic collapse of values.
Brag at a dinner table about how much money you made this year, and the whole table treats you like royalty. Tell the same table you read fifty books this year and spent a lot of time reflecting on life — you'll probably get awkward silence, followed by whispers behind your back: "What a loser."
We say "money can't buy everything" with our mouths. Our actions tell a very different story.
A person's decency, integrity, sincerity, courage, kindness toward the vulnerable, resilience in hardship — these qualities are worth nothing on today's "market." Or more precisely, these qualities only become visible after you've first proven you have money.
When a poor person is kind, they call it "simple-minded." When a rich person is kind, they call it "visionary." When a poor person persists, they call it "stubborn." When a rich person persists, they call it "passionate." Same qualities, different price tags, completely different reviews.
What an efficient screening system — it doesn't filter for character, only for wallets.
A Feast for Hypocrites
Worse than the worship of money is the hypocrisy that saturates the entire society.
During the holidays, relatives "lovingly" ask: "How's work going?" "Are you seeing anyone?" — You think that's concern? No. It's data collection. They need these inputs to perform a vital operation: ranking. In their mental scoreboard, all the cousins are arranged by income and relationship status. Who's the "success story," who's the "disappointment" — it's all mapped out with crystal clarity.
You get promoted: "That's our family's genes right there." You lose your job: "I always said that kid wouldn't amount to much."
Social media is even worse. Someone posts about their startup success — likes and comments come flooding in. Someone posts that they lost their job and are looking for work — the silence is deafening.
It's not that nobody sees it. They see it and choose to pretend they don't.
Because in today's social landscape, "failure" is treated like a contagious disease. Get too close to a failure, and you might catch it.
I've seen this play out countless times:
When someone is riding high, they're always surrounded by "good friends" — toasting, laughing, showering them with warmth. The moment that same person hits rock bottom, those "good friends" vanish like they've been hit with an invisibility spell. Then when fortune returns, they reappear with a grin: "I always believed in you!"
Everyone only cares about their own interests. It sounds harsh, but close your eyes and think about the people around you — how many would genuinely stand by you when you have absolutely nothing?
I'm not saying people shouldn't consider their own interests — that's human nature. What saddens me is that we don't even have the courage to admit it. We wrap naked self-interest in the language of "caring," "friendship," and "love" — then quietly retreat when the other person has no more value to offer, performing a little show of "it's out of my hands" on the way out.
This hypocrisy is more nauseating than indifference.
Prisoners of Other People's Eyes
When an entire society measures people with an economic yardstick, the most terrifying thing happens — you start measuring yourself with the same yardstick.
You earn a decent salary but can barely cover rent in a big city, so you decide you're a failure.
You're thirty and unmarried, and everyone around you is "helpfully" worried on your behalf, so you decide something's wrong with you.
You don't enjoy networking, don't like drinking culture, don't play social games, can't fake-smile at people you dislike — so you decide you have "low emotional intelligence."
You start self-deprecating. "Corporate slave," "wage drone," "cannon fodder," "useless" — these words, once sharp tools for mocking power structures, slowly become young people's genuine self-perception. When you say "I'm useless," there's a smile on your lips, but deep down, you actually believe it.
You've internalized external standards as your own, then used someone else's ruler to measure out your own insecurity.
But have you ever stopped to ask: who handed you that ruler? And why did you take it?
A person's confidence never comes from other people's opinions.
Those who truly live at peace with themselves — it's not that they don't care what others think. It's that they figured something out early on: other people's opinions have nothing to do with me.
Have you seen the grandparents happily haggling at the wet market? The middle-aged folks dancing their hearts out in the park? The young people with modest salaries who spend every weekend hiking, cycling, visiting exhibitions?
They don't sit on social media agonizing over "everyone else is so far ahead." They don't think their life is over because they don't own property. They don't negate their entire worth because they earn less than their peers.
It's not because they're numb. It's because they chose their own coordinate system.
The Real Reason Birth Rates Are Falling
Back to where we started.
On the surface, falling birth rates are about economic pressure. Underneath, the real problem is a society-wide breakdown of values.
When a society tells you: your worth equals your income, then every activity that doesn't generate financial returns — dating, marriage, having children, spending time with family, daydreaming, going for a walk, reading a "useless" book — gets labeled as "a waste of time."
Young people don't not want to date — it's that the entry barrier has been raised to absurd heights. You need a house, a car, and savings before you "deserve" love. What kind of logic is that?
Young people don't not want to marry — it's that marriage has been distorted into a corporate merger. Bride price, house, car, savings — in the entire negotiation process, the weight given to actual feelings might not even reach 10%.
Young people don't not want children — it's that they know all too clearly: in a society where "money is everything," a child who isn't armed with enough wealth will face the same anxiety, the same insecurity, and the same herd mentality as their parents.
Rather than let the next generation repeat the same suffering, better not to start at all.
This is what countless young people truly think deep down. It's not selfishness. It's lucidity. You could even call it compassion.
But This Isn't the End
I'm not writing this to peddle anxiety, nor to judge anyone from a moral high horse.
I just want to say a few things that might sound out of place:
First, your worth is not defined by your bank balance. You are kind, you are interesting, you don't back down when things get hard — these qualities are worth infinitely more than any number. Society won't tell you this, because kindness can't be monetized and being interesting doesn't scale. But these are precisely the most precious things about a person.
Second, stop performing. You don't have to pretend you're fine. You don't have to pretend you enjoy playing by society's rules. If certain social obligations feel fake, don't go. If certain people feel fake, stay away. You have no obligation to play along with anyone's performance, and no obligation to sell out your true feelings just to fit in.
Third, take your eyes off everyone else and look at yourself. Did you learn something new today? Did you do one thing that made you happy? Did you genuinely smile at someone? These things are small, but they make up a real life. And a real life will always be more meaningful than any carefully curated persona.
Fourth, confidence is not built on comparison. True confidence comes from knowing and accepting yourself — knowing who you are, what you want, and what path you're walking. This kind of confidence grows from the inside out. It needs no external validation. Whether others see you as a success or a failure has absolutely nothing to do with who you are.
There's a quote I love: "The world is your own. It has nothing to do with anyone else."
That's not telling you to be selfish. It's telling you to be free.
One Last Thing
I know this article won't change anything. Housing prices won't drop because I wrote a few paragraphs. Bride prices won't disappear because I ranted about them. Those people at dinner tables who adjust their attitude based on your income won't suddenly develop a conscience.
But if one young person, scrolling their phone late at night, reads this and exhales just a little — "Oh, so it's not just me who thinks this way" — then that's enough.
You're not a misfit. You just haven't been fully tamed by this absurd system yet.
That's not your failure.
That's the last bit of dignity you have left.