By Cai Siyun, Vision Times
China’s population has been declining year over year, and even the capital is no exception. Official statistics show that Beijing’s young adult population has fallen sharply over the past decade. Between 2016 and 2024, the number of residents aged 20 to 30 reportedly dropped from 4.485 million to 2.489 million, an eight-year decline of roughly two million people.
To make matters worse, some residents describe a city that feels increasingly empty, economically stagnant, and marked by rising unemployment and visible homelessness. Some homeless individuals now say conditions have become so severe that “even leftover food can no longer be found.”
On Jan. 21, at a press conference reviewing Beijing’s 2025 economic performance, Zhu Yannan, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, stated that the city’s economy was “continuing to recover and improve.” Yet accounts shared by people living in Beijing paint a starkly different picture.
Rising homeless population
Videos circulating on Douyin (a popular video-sharing and social media similar to TikTok) describe what creators call an atmosphere of economic depression, with more people turning to scavenging and informal survival. Some note that those collecting recyclables around residential trash bins are no longer only elderly residents, but increasingly younger individuals.
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Chen Hong (a pseudonym), in his 30s, has survived in Beijing for several years by collecting garbage. He said that even educated people are struggling to find work, making it even harder for ordinary laborers.
Chen currently lives in a place that provides shelter from wind and rain and requires no rent. He recalled that in earlier years, survival was easier: “Before, we could still pick up food to eat. There were more people, and outside restaurants you could always find something. Some people would order a pizza, eat one or two slices, and leave the rest. We often picked it up and could at least fill our stomachs.”
But now, he said, he earns nothing at all on many days. “Now I don’t make even one cent a day. Food is uncertain. I only eat one meal a day.”
Chen said scavenging used to provide a small but steady income: “At the West Railway Station, there used to be so many trash bins. Just walking around once, you could collect five yuan worth of plastic bottles. If you walked a few rounds, you could make twenty yuan. In summer, some people could earn one or two hundred yuan a day just picking up bottles.”
He said trash bins once contained everything from fruit to leftover meals. But many bins have now been removed, and even when they exist, they are empty. “Now there are fewer travelers, fewer people eating at restaurants, and portions are getting smaller. So we can’t even find leftovers anymore.”
Desperate measures
Chen also claimed that beginning in 2023, some homeless individuals near Beijing West Station survived by selling blood. “They can’t even find basic day-labor jobs. No money, no food. If you sell blood, at least they give you something to eat.”
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He said payment reportedly rose from 200 yuan per donation to 600 or 800 yuan, but that by late last year, the group suddenly disappeared. Chen added that fewer migrants are coming to Beijing in search of work, and train services have been reduced. “Conservatively speaking, the flow of people has dropped by at least two-thirds. It feels like there’s almost nobody. If this continues, some stations may even shut down.”
He described the commercial district around the station as having collapsed since the COVID-19 pandemic: “This huge business area has completely closed down. Upstairs and downstairs, everything is shut. Just two or three years ago, it was packed.”
Plunging retail sales
Beijing’s official retail data also reflects weakening consumption. According to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics, the city’s total retail sales in 2025 were 1.3677 trillion yuan, down from 1.3794 trillion yuan in 2022. Retail sales fell 7.2 percent in 2022 during lockdown disruptions, rebounded in 2023, then reversed again in 2024 and continued declining in 2025.
Analysts note that growing uncertainty about employment, investment, and policy is pushing consumers to cut discretionary spending, an internal slowdown that may be harder to reverse than pandemic-era shocks.
Beijing’s permanent population stood at 21.832 million in 2024, including 8.193 million migrants. Migrant numbers have declined for nine consecutive years. The number of children aged 0 to 4 dropped from 964,000 in 2016 to 674,000 in 2024, contributing to widespread closures of private kindergartens.
The decline among young adults is even more striking. Residents aged 20 to 30 fell by 45 percent between 2016 and 2024. Meanwhile, the population aged 60 and above surged from 3.431 million in 2014 to 5.14 million in 2024, an increase of 50 percent.
As Beijing’s youth population shrinks and economic pressures intensify, the city’s future trajectory is becoming an increasingly urgent question — one reflected not only in statistics, but in the everyday struggles of those left behind.
