China's sustained and rapid economic growth in recent decades has become a "miracle" in the world. When discussing why China can create a "miracle" of economic growth, many people think that the influence of "demographic dividend" is a crucial reason, and "demographic dividend" is therefore linked with the prospect of sustained economic growth in China.
During the period from1965 to1970, a "demographic dividend" appeared in China, which created and accumulated the national economic foundation. After 2000, more people felt the pressure of population and employment, and a large number of rural surplus labor and urban unemployment seriously plagued economic growth. 10 years, I really felt the impact of "demographic dividend" on economic growth.
The "demographic dividend" does not mean that the economy will inevitably grow, but once the economic growth enters the fast lane, the "demographic dividend" is bound to become a powerful booster for economic growth. Abundant labor resources and cost advantages make China the world's factory and the engine of world economic growth, but it also raises a worrying question: how long can China's economy grow after the end of the "demographic dividend" period? To answer this question, we must find out how the "demographic dividend" affects economic growth. Simply put, the impact of demographic dividend or population age structure changes on economic growth mainly includes two aspects: one is the impact on the production field, and the other is the impact on consumption and savings.
The influence of "demographic dividend" on the production field is mainly reflected in the supply of labor force. From the perspective of labor supply, China is still in the richest period of working-age population, but with the slowdown of the growth rate of working-age population, the growth of working-age population will stop at around 20 15. Generally speaking, when the growth of a country's working-age population stops, the problem of labor shortage will soon come. However, the dual structure of urban and rural areas makes the situation in China very different, and the huge rural population can still provide labor resources for cities and towns for a long time. China is in the process of rapid urbanization. If the urban population increases by one percentage point every year, the working-age population will increase by about150,000 every year. Imagine that when China enters a relatively developed stage, most people, such as 70%, will choose to live in cities and towns, and the transfer of rural labor force to cities and towns will last for more than 20 years. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, China still seems to have a relatively adequate labor supply. From the perspective of labor supply, the "demographic dividend" will continue to promote the rapid economic growth of China.
Judging from the influence of "demographic dividend" on consumption and savings, stopping the growth of working-age population or increasing the proportion of elderly population in a certain period of time does not necessarily lead to a decline in the savings rate, on the contrary, it may further increase the savings rate. In the early stage of aging, people who enter the aging stage often have a high savings rate and tendency, so some people regard the early stage of aging as the second "demographic dividend" period. In this sense, the end of the "demographic dividend" period with a rich working-age population is not the real end of the "demographic dividend". As long as we can give full play to the capital efficiency of savings and make capital get a reasonable return, the second "demographic dividend" may still inject "vitality" into economic growth.
To sum up, regardless of production, consumption and savings, the "demographic dividend" will be a favorable factor to promote China's long-term sustained economic growth. At present, China's economy is in the best period in history, and it is also the most rewarding period of "demographic dividend". From the perspective of the next 20 to 30 years, we have no reason to doubt that China's economic growth will lose momentum, on the contrary, it will be stronger.
According to the World Development Report 2007 of the World Bank, the youth population in China reached its peak around 1978. Research by the World Bank shows that this window of declining dependency ratio can last for about 40 years, depending on the rate of fertility decline, and then it will be closed again. Almost all developing countries are still in this window. /kloc-China and Thailand will close this window in 0/0 years, and developed countries such as Japan have already closed it.
According to the research of some China institutions, 27% of China's economic growth benefits from the "demographic dividend", which is basically equivalent to the contribution rate of the previous "demographic dividend" to the economic take-off of Japanese and Singaporean countries.
Unfavorable folding factor
1. Short-term influencing factors In the short term, the following factors affect the realization of the demographic dividend:
(1), for example, the employment situation in China is very severe, which may further deteriorate in the future, resulting in underemployment of the working-age population. In this way, a considerable part of the working-age population will become a population that needs social burden and support, but these people cannot create wealth, thus causing great waste of labor resources.
(2) The low quality of rural labor generally restricts the realization of demographic dividend. Judging from the distribution of the working-age population, the bulk of China's demographic dividend is in the countryside, which is rich in labor resources, and a large number of rural labor force people come out of the land and go to cities and developed areas. According to the data of the fifth population census in 2000, "migrant workers" accounted for 46.5% of the employed population in the secondary and tertiary industries, including 56.7% in the secondary industry and 80% in the construction industry. Therefore, the degree to which China reaps the demographic dividend should depend on the degree to which rural surplus labor resources are transformed into real labor productivity and the degree to which rural surplus labor resources are developed. However, the fact that the quality of rural labor force in China is generally low determines that the realization of transforming into real labor productivity cannot be too high. The Report on Education and Population Resources in China, which was first published by China in 2003, shows that the average length of education of rural laborers is 7.33 years, while that of urban laborers is 10.20 years. According to the expert's prediction of the State Council Development Research Center, they are employed, but they can't get the education and training they deserve. The low-quality and low-cost labor force also determines that the creativity is relatively low. For example, the price of manufacturing 1 hour labor force is $30 in the United States, about $2 in China, and the labor rate in the United States is 10-20 times higher than that in China. It can be seen that only by improving the quality and cost of the labor force can China better realize the demographic dividend.
(3) Because farmers' income in cities has not increased, the cost of going to cities has obviously increased, reducing farmers' desire to go to cities. This is one of the important reasons for the shortage of migrant workers in some parts of China after the exemption of agricultural tax (that is, the relative increase of agricultural income).
(1), the economic benefits of farmers working in cities are not high. Statistics show that the wages of migrant workers have hardly increased in the past 20 years.
(2) The skills that farmers get from urban work are quite limited. To make matters worse, there is no guarantee for farmers to go to cities for employment or unemployment, which makes them face a crisis of survival at any time and has to choose to return to their hometowns to farm. In addition, the cultural benefits they get from urban life are not great. This is because the social and cultural life of migrant workers in cities is limited by low economic income and low knowledge and cultural background. Moreover, the "exclusiveness" of urban culture to migrant workers also keeps them out of the urban cultural circle.
2. Long-term factors
In the long run, a country's "demographic dividend" is unsustainable. The theory of demographic transition tells us that the "demographic dividend" period is only a necessary stage in the process of population change in a country, that is, the mortality rate drops significantly without a significant decline in the birth rate. As far as China is concerned, since the implementation of the family planning policy in the 1970s, the gradual decline of the birth rate will inevitably lead to the decline of the total working population. In addition, China has begun to show a rapid population aging trend, and China has been considered as one of the countries with the fastest population aging rate in the world. Therefore, in the long run, the proportion of working population in China will be reduced, and the golden age of "demographic dividend" enjoyed by China economy will gradually drift away. The aging population and the continuous decline in the supply rate of young and middle-aged labor force will restrict China's future economic growth through the supply of labor factors and related social savings and capital accumulation.
A question worth mentioning is whether an effective social security system can be established in the favorable period when China has the most abundant labor resources, which will be related to the long-term development of China. "Getting old before getting rich" is the biggest feature of China's aging. With the increase of the absolute and relative number of the elderly population, the social burden will increase day by day, and the social security resources will face great pressure. Moreover, due to the huge floating population in rural areas, the degree of aging in rural areas will be higher than that in cities in the future, which is another remarkable feature of aging in China. How to improve the urban old-age security system and establish a set of old-age security system that takes into account the characteristics of the country, the collective and the individual is a difficult problem that the government must solve.
How to deal with this paragraph by folding editing?
1. Promote the coordinated adjustment of population structure with effective and reasonable population transfer and flow, promote the renewal and transformation of rural families' concept of childbearing, and encourage them to go abroad and participate in the world economy. Another aspect of promoting population mobility and transfer is to actively promote the foreign exchange of population, including: studying abroad for further study, sending labor services abroad, and personnel exchange. Of course, this kind of population migration may have little effect on relieving the population pressure, but it is beneficial for China to strengthen cooperation and exchanges with the global economy and participate in the division of labor and development of the world economy.
2. Continue to actively promote urbanization and the construction of small towns, improve the national social security and medical insurance system, and implement unified national treatment for all residents. An important reason for the formation of China's huge population base is the traditional cultural concept of how long the demographic dividend can last in China. The effective control of urban population is largely due to the gradual improvement of the systematic social security system and medical insurance system, which has solved the worries of most families. For the vast rural population, these two security systems can be excluded. Migrant workers cannot enjoy social security, medical care, child care and education in their workplaces. This is not only not conducive to the effective flow of population, but also easy to breed the contradiction between urban and rural population and trigger the negative effects of population flow. Only by abolishing this differential treatment between urban and rural residents and bringing all urban and rural residents, regardless of region, into the two systems of social security and medical insurance, can we effectively give play to the advantages of population mobility, realize the effective allocation of human resources and labor force throughout the country, accelerate the formation of integrated economy and the development process of urbanization and small towns, and promote the development of national modernization.
3. Increase investment in education industry, popularize compulsory education in senior high school, implement flexible and diverse adult education methods, encourage various ways to form lifelong education for all, and strive to improve the quality of the people. Advocate compulsory education in senior high schools and cancel all kinds of school fees, reduce the burden on families, expand the range of educated population, and truly let every citizen enjoy a fair right to education, thus improving the quality of the national population. In adult education, on the one hand, we should lower the threshold, adopt the educational principle of lenient entry and strict exit, attract more and more people to enter schools, improve their theoretical level, and improve their work and study. On the other hand, we should encourage the coexistence and development of various educational methods, including community education, rural education and elderly education, and gradually form an atmosphere of lifelong education for all, thus gradually improving the quality of the national population. Only in this way can China's population situation be introduced into the development track from quantitative change to qualitative change, thus providing more powerful impetus for economic development.
4. Change the national birth policy