If youth didn’t drive past growth, is ageing bound to be disastrous? 如果年轻没有推动过去的增长，那么老龄化就一定会带来灾难吗？

2023 年 9 月 19 日

Since starting to open up to market forces in the 1980s China’s economy has grown at a formidable rate. Adjusting for the cost of living, gdp per person has risen ten-fold. But now China faces headwinds. Consumer confidence is low, youth unemployment is high and the economy is on the verge of deflation. On top of this, demography, a factor once credited for the country’s growth, is becoming a handicap.
自 20 世纪 80 年代开始向市场力量开放以来，中国经济以惊人的速度增长。扣除生活成本，人均国民生产总值增长了十倍。但现在，中国面临着逆风。消费者信心不足，青年失业率居高不下，经济濒临通货紧缩。除此之外，曾被视为中国经济增长功臣的人口因素也正在成为障碍。

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During the past four decades China’s working-age population grew far faster than the number of young and elderly dependants did. This, in theory, increased the average citizen’s contribution to gdp, a feature often described as the country’s “demographic dividend”. However, a new working paper by Xin Meng of the Australian National University, appears to refute this widely accepted explanation for China’s economic success. Although the share of the country’s population that were of working age surged during this period, the share of people available to work did not.
过去四十年间，中国劳动适龄人口的增长速度远远超过了年轻和老年受抚养人口的增长速度。从理论上讲，这增加了普通公民对国民生产总值的贡献，这一特征通常被描述为中国的 "人口红利"。然而，澳大利亚国立大学孟欣的一篇新工作论文似乎驳斥了这一广为接受的关于中国经济成功的解释。虽然在此期间，中国劳动适龄人口的比例激增，但可工作人口的比例却没有增加。

Dr Meng gathered data from China’s decennial censuses and its between-census surveys between 1982 and 2015. The country does not make up-to-date detailed demographic figures openly available, but it has granted some researchers, of whom Dr Meng is one, access to a subset of the data. These audits contain information on the age, work status, education and hukou (household registration) of a representative sample of the population.
孟博士收集了中国1982年至2015年间十年一次的人口普查和两次人口普查之间的调查数据。中国没有公开最新的详细人口数据，但允许一些研究人员（孟博士是其中之一）获取部分数据。这些审计包含了具有代表性的人口样本的年龄、工作状况、教育和户口信息。

Her analysis showed that between 1982 and 2015 China’s working-age population, defined as those aged between 16 and 65, grew from 600m to 1bn. As a share of the population, it rose from 60% to 73%.
她的分析显示，1982 年至 2015 年间，中国的劳动适龄人口（指 16 岁至 65 岁的人口）从 6 亿增长到 10 亿。劳动年龄人口占总人口的比例从60%上升到73%。

During this same period, however, labour-force participation dropped from 85% to just over 70%. Much of the decline came from those with an urban hukou. Unlike holders of rural hukou, urbanites were subjected to mandatory retirement at the age of 55 for women and 65 for men. Compulsory education and greater university enrolment kept under-25s out of the workforce. Labour-force participation for women of childbearing age also fell, probably owing to the increasing cost of child care.
然而，在同一时期，劳动力参与率从 85% 下降到 70%多一点。下降的大部分是拥有城市户口的人。与持有农村户口的人不同，城市人必须在女性 55 岁和男性 65 岁时退休。义务教育和更高的大学入学率使 25 岁以下的人无法参加工作。育龄妇女的劳动力参与率也有所下降，这可能是由于育儿成本不断增加。

As a result, China’s labour force as a share of the total population was roughly stable, hovering at around 50%, from 1982 to 2015. The demographic dividend, Dr Meng argues, may never have existed.
因此，从1982年到2015年，中国劳动力占总人口的比例基本稳定，徘徊在50%左右。孟博士认为，人口红利可能从未存在过。

The quality, rather than quantity, of the workforce seems a better explanation for the country’s extraordinary growth in gdp per person. From 1982 to 2010, the share of people going to university increased tenfold to 38% for those with an urban hukou. In rural areas, the proportion who attained a basic level of education more than doubled to nearly 60%. By moving rural workers into more productive jobs in the cities, urbanisation probably also helped.
劳动力的质量而非数量似乎更能解释该国人均国民生产总值的超常增长。从 1982 年到 2010 年，拥有城市户口的人口中，上大学的比例增长了 10 倍，达到 38%。在农村地区，受过基础教育的人口比例增长了一倍多，达到近 60%。通过将农村劳动力转移到城市从事生产性更强的工作，城市化可能也起到了帮助作用。

Last year China’s population started shrinking for the first time since the 1960s. Its working-age population has been declining for almost a decade. There is growing concern that the country may have “grown old before it has grown rich”.
去年，中国人口自 20 世纪 60 年代以来首次开始缩减。近十年来，中国的劳动适龄人口一直在减少。人们越来越担心，中国可能已经 "未富先老"。

But if demographic changes were not a critical driver of gains in gdp per person the past, they may not be disastrous for the future. These results suggest that the country has other levers to pull to offset a dwindling workforce. It could increase the retirement age. Its urbanisation rate, at 64%, is still below that of advanced economies and has room to rise. Immigration, if China were to ever consider it, could bolster the labour force too. Whether all that would be enough to save the country from economic slowdown remains an open question. ■
但是，如果人口结构的变化在过去不是人均 GDP 增长的关键驱动因素，那么在未来也不一定是灾难性的。这些结果表明，国家还可以利用其他杠杆来抵消劳动力的减少。它可以提高退休年龄。中国的城市化率为 64%，仍低于发达经济体，还有上升空间。如果中国考虑移民，也可以增强劳动力。但这一切是否足以使中国免于经济放缓，仍是一个悬而未决的问题。■

Sources: “China’s 40 years of demographic dividend and labour supply: the quantity myth”, by Xin Meng, 2023; World Bank
资料来源"资料来源：《中国 40 年人口红利与劳动力供给：数量神话》，作者 Xin Meng，2023 年；世界银行。

This article appeared in the Graphic detail section of the print edition under the headline "Too busy learning"
本文以 "忙于学习 "为题刊登在印刷版的图文详解部分。

Sources: “China’s 40 years of demographic dividend and labour supply: the quantity myth”, by Xin Meng, 2023; World Bank
资料来源"资料来源：《中国 40 年人口红利与劳动力供给：数量神话》，作者 Xin Meng，2023 年；世界银行。