Fresh model to counter low birthrate, aging population

China's new demographic development model, which prioritizes improving the overall quality of people's lives and the workforce, will help propel modernization, officials and experts said.

The model is expected to combine the nation's conventional strength of a huge labor supply with a new focus on further enhancing health and education levels, maintaining an appropriate fertility rate, and promoting population movement based on economic growth needs, they said.

At the first meeting of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee's Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs early last month, President Xi Jinping stressed that population development is a vital issue related to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and efforts must be made to develop a higher-quality population to advance Chinese modernization.

Zhang Xuyin, deputy head of the China Population and Development Research Center, said, "The meeting sent a strong signal from China's top central leadership that the country's demography has entered a phase of promoting high-quality development, which will provide a solid bedrock and offer sustained impetus for modernization."

Those attending the meeting also pointed out the long-term trends of the nation's demographic development, including a low birthrate and aging population.

Zhou Haiwang, deputy head of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Urban and Demographic Studies, said that although China's population has undergone profound changes in past decades, the nation's advantages due to its massive population and rich labor resources will remain for some time.

"Meanwhile, the country is capable of reaping dividends by enhancing the quality of people and grooming talent to turbocharge the pace of modernization," he said.

Discussions about China's demographic changes and their impact on the economy have intensified this year, as the population dropped for the first time in more than six decades last year, with India projected to soon surpass China as the world's most populous nation.

In January, National Bureau of Statistics data showed that China's population fell by 850,000 year-on-year to 1.41175 billion by the end of last year, with a record low birthrate of 6.77 per 1,000 people.

In April, the UN said India is expected to overtake China by nearly 3 million people in the middle of this year to become the most populous country.

Despite the change, Zhou said China's population will continue to exceed those of all developed countries for years.

"Projections released by the UN in 2022 show that China's population will remain at around 1.4 billion in 2035 and 1.3 billion in 2049," he said. "Such a large population can be translated into a huge domestic market and add fuel to China's 'dual circulation' development paradigm (an approach that allows domestic and overseas markets to reinforce one another, with the domestic market as the mainstay)."

More significantly, Zhang, from the China Population and Development Research Center, said the nation's workforce will remain strong in terms of quantity and quality.

Official data show that China's working-age population stands at about 900 million, and 240 million of these people have received higher education.

"To put the figure of 240 million into perspective, it exceeds the combined populations of Germany, the United Kingdom and France," Zhang said.

In recent years, some 14 million people have entered the Chinese employment market each year, and on average they have received nearly 14 years of schooling.

"The intuitive reaction upon seeing a shrinking population is to anticipate a decrease in the labor force, but this viewpoint oversimplifies the complicated procedures for calculating labor supply," Zhang said.