Expert: China may experience negative population growth in the next few decades, but the demographic dividend is still there

　　China News Service, Beijing, February 16th (Reporter Kan Feng) "In the next few decades, China may be in a state of negative population growth, but the speed is a matter of speed." Du Peng, vice president of the Chinese Population Association and vice president of Renmin University of China A few days ago, in an exclusive interview with China News Agency's "China Focus Face to Face", he said that at present, China has ushered in negative population growth, but the demographic dividend still exists.

　　In January this year, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that by the end of 2022, the national population (including the population of 31 provinces, autonomous regions, municipalities and active servicemen, excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan residents and foreigners living in 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities) will be 1,411.75 million , a decrease of 850,000 from the end of the previous year.

This is the first negative population growth in China in the past 61 years.

　　Du Peng said that the negative population growth refers to the symbolic change that the total population begins to decrease, which stems from the decline in the fertility rate.

　　"In the early 1990s, China's total fertility rate dropped to 2.1. 2.1 is also called the replacement level of the generation. That is, if it is lower than the replacement level, it means that the brakes on population growth have been stepped on. Sooner or later, there will be population growth. Negative growth. Therefore, China’s negative population growth began 30 years ago, and it was only in 2022 that intuitive data showed that it had truly entered the stage of negative population growth.”

　　Du Peng said that it should be noted that China's population will experience negative growth in 2022, which will also be accompanied by the event that the birth population will be less than 10 million for the first time.

Observing history, China's birth population was close to 30 million in 1963, and it was still above 15 million 10 years ago. In 2022, it dropped to 9.56 million.

In the next few decades, China may be in a state of negative population growth, it's just a matter of speed.

　　Is China's demographic dividend shrinking?

Du Peng's answer is no. He said that the demographic dividend is an economic concept, which not only depends on the population structure, but the key factor is whether the population opportunity window can be fully utilized.

　　"Before the reform and opening up, China's labor force was very abundant, but this was not the main reason for China's economic development. The main reason is that the reform and opening up itself fully released the advantages of China's population size and structure, which created a demographic dividend."

　　Du Peng said that judging that the demographic dividend still exists in China is based on three reasons:

　　First, the number of Chinese labor force is still very large.

By 2022, China's working-age population aged 16-59 will reach 876 million, and the scale is still huge.

　　Second, China is transforming from a large country of human resources to a large country of human capital.

Most of China's more than 800 million laborers are well-educated, and the average number of years of education received by people over the age of 15 has increased to nearly 11 years.

In 2022, the number of college graduates in China will reach 10.76 million, while China's new employment population will be around 13 million a year. If full employment is achieved, most of the newly employed population will be highly educated.

"The number of our labor force may slowly decline in the next few years, but the quality of the labor force is improving, which provides us with a very good opportunity to make full use of a large and highly qualified labor force."

　　Third, China has entered a new stage of development, and its systems and mechanisms are being further improved, which can continuously promote a better match between labor supply and employment demand.

In the process of promoting urbanization, the surplus agricultural labor force is further transferred to cities and towns, realizing a more effective allocation of human resources.

　　Du Peng said that it must be noted that China still has a large labor force, a better labor quality structure, and a more complete mechanism to integrate high-quality labor with economic and social development more closely, so the demographic dividend still exists.

(over)