China’s Demographic Dividend
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China's demographic dividend disappearing
BEIJING - China's demographic dividend has been disappearing since 2012, which will have significant impact on economic growth, the People's Daily quoted an expert as saying in a Monday report. "We should be psychologically and politically prepared for the situation," said Professor Cai Fang, a demographer and director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in an interview with the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC). His remarks came following the first decrease in the size of China's labor force since the country's reform and opening-up drive began in the late 1970s. Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on January 18 showed that the number of laborers between the ages of 15 and 59 decreased by 3.45 million year on year in 2012, marking the first "absolute decrease" in China's labor force. Ma Jiantang, director of the NBS, said at a recent press conference that the situation calls for much attention. The demographic dividend is a window of opportunity in the development of a society or a nation that opens up as fertility rates decline, with faster rates of economic growth and human development becoming possible when combined with effective policies and markets.
China’s Population Destiny: The Looming Crisis
By 2013 China’s demographic dividend growth rate will turn negative: That is, the growth rate of net consumers will exceed the growth rate of net producers. Starting in 2013, such a negative growth rate will reduce the country’s economic growth rate by at least half a percentage point per year. Between 2013 and 2050, China will not fare demographically much better than Japan or Taiwan, and will fare much worse than the United States and France. As a result of China’s very low fertility over the past two decades, the abundance of young, inexpensive labor is soon to be history. The number of workers aged 20 to 29 will stay about the same for the next few years, but a precipitous drop will begin in the middle of the coming decade. Over a 10-year period, between 2016 and 2026, the size of the population in this age range will be reduced by about one-quarter, to 150 million from 200 million. For Chinese aged 20 to 24, that decline will come sooner and will be more drastic: Over the next decade, their number will be reduced by nearly 50 percent, to 68 million from 125 million. Such a drastic decline in the young labor force will usher in, for the first time in recent Chinese history, successive shrinking cohorts of labor force entrants. It will also have profound consequences for labor productivity, since the youngest workers are the most recently educated and the most innovative.
China's demographic dividend disappearing
China's demographic dividend has been disappearing since 2012, which will have significant impact on economic growth, the People's Daily quoted an expert as saying in a Monday report. "We should be psychologically and politically prepared for the situation," said Professor Cai Fang, a demographer and director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in an interview with the People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC). His remarks came following the first decrease in the size of China's labor force since the country's reform and opening-up drive began in the late 1970s. Data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Jan. 18 showed that the number of laborers between the ages of 15 and 59 decreased by 3.45 million year on year in 2012, marking the first "absolute decrease" in China's labor force. Ma Jiantang, director of the NBS, said at a recent press conference that the situation calls for much attention. The demographic dividend is a window of opportunity in the development of a society or a nation that opens up as fertility rates decline, with faster rates of economic growth and human development becoming possible when combined with effective policies and markets. A report from the China Development Research Foundation also stated that the country's labor force will decrease by about 29 million over the current decade. Cai said the disappearing demographic dividend will bring great changes in terms of China's economic growth. "Potential growth rates are decided by the input of the labor force, capital and improved production rates. The disappearing demographic dividend will significantly affect these three factors," Cai said. Cai said China's future economic growth will decelerate due to the disappearance of the demographic dividend. "Facing the disappearance, we can increase the rate of labor participation and the production rate," he said. As to whether the country should adjust its controversial family planning policy or one-child policy to alleviate the impact, Cai said different families have different expectations and the government should begin to properly adjust population policies from a people-oriented perspective. "As far as I'm concerned, any adjustment should include being open to a two-child policy," Cai said.
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 China's demographic dividend seems to be over. We are now entering a turning point in which excessive labor from the agricultural sector is more or less absorbed into the modern sector, pushing wages up and requiring the economy to find new ways to boost productivity.
2 What Happens When China’s Demographic Dividend Stops Paying Out?
3 According to Cai, China's demographic dividend period has passed. As a result, there could be a labor shortage that may last a while, and which could lead to an increase in wages.