I originally thought that during an economic upturn, more people would want to have more children, to bring them to see this beautiful world, but from the statistical charts, it seems not to be the case.

At the peak of the "Three Years of Natural Disasters", it was still 18.13%, and then after the disaster ended, there was an explosive population growth, but it soon fell from the peak, and has been declining ever since. Only at the beginning of the reform and opening-up did it briefly experience a small peak in population growth, with a gap of no more than 3%. But even so, the one-child policy was implemented, and then it kept declining. By 2025, the birth rate and death rate have been inverted for many consecutive years.
The total population should be a dividend, not a burden.
If this decline continues, with ongoing aging, high incidence of cancer, and further population decline, within my lifetime I should be able to see many small villages completely "disappear", and many marginal county-level cities downgraded to counties, counties to districts, districts to towns.
Why is it that even though the birth rate is already so low, our social welfare and education still cannot be improved? Can't we even achieve universal 12-year education directly to high school?
GDP has grown thousands of times, but the people's money and quality of life have not seen a leapfrog improvement.
Where did all the money go?