Gu Bei, an only child, took a month of unpaid leave when her mother had a stroke. There was no sibling to split it, no cousin down the street. She took the leave, and it cost her the job.
Her situation is no longer a Chinese one. About 71 percent of the world now lives in a country below the replacement fertility rate of 2.1, some 136 countries as of 2026, up from four in 1950. Demographers project that a 65-year-old woman had roughly 41 living relatives on average in 1950 and will have about 25 by 2095, a decline of nearly two-fifths. Families are growing taller and thinner: more grandparents and great-grandparents stacked above you, fewer siblings and cousins spread beside you. The caregiving, the goodbyes, and the entrance ceremonies fall to fewer hands. Nobody else was coming.
