China's demographics will be fine through mid-century

NOAH SMITH

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In discussions about China’s economy, the issue of demographics comes up quite a lot. In 2022, China’s population began to decrease (and coincidentally, India’s population surpassed China’s). The country’s fertility rate, which had already fallen below replacement levels decades earlier, fell again recently, to just 1.09 — one of the lowest rates in the world, and even lower than Japan.

Now, I absolutely do think this is a problem for China in the long term. In fact, China is far from unique in this regard — every developed country is aging rapidly, and most developing countries aren’t far behind.

In fact, the shrinking of the population isn’t actually the problem — it’s the aging. Rising old-age dependency ratios do put a huge economic burden on working people, and an aging workforce probably does reduce innovation and productivity growth. This is true despite automation. A world top-heavy with old people will be a world where young people have to toil harder and harder, all over the globe.