by Carl Minzner
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China\u2019s population is now declining. Last week, officials announced<\/a> that 2022 marked the first drop in total population in six decades, since the famine of the Great Leap Forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This long-expected event is the result of decades-long declines in Chinese fertility rates. Over the course of the 21st<\/sup> century, this will result in a steadily decreasing population. Current United Nations estimates show China\u2019s total population falling by up to 100 or 200 million by 2050. Neither a shrinking \u2013 nor a growing – population represents a crisis in and of itself. Rather, the far more important question is whether state authorities can respond effectively to the challenges such trends pose. There are serious questions as to whether Beijing is up to this task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, Beijing has been slow to adjust existing policies to respond to China\u2019s rapid aging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider pensions. For well over a decade, Chinese officials have regularly made noises about the need to raise the official retirement age from unsustainably low levels set back in the middle of the 20th<\/sup> century \u2013 55 for women (50 for blue-collar female workers) and 60 for men \u2013 in light of impending financial pressures. But faced with public opposition from urban elites who benefit most from existing policies, Beijing has repeatedly punted, failing to take meaningful reform. Current central policies<\/a> amount to \u2013 yet again \u2013 gesturing vaguely in the direction of raising retirement ages by 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, it is unclear whether Beijing will be able (or willing) to create new frameworks to respond to emerging needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Labor and migration are a key example. Elsewhere in East Asia, inbound flows of foreign labor have been a crucial component of responses by states and societies alike to rapidly aging populations. Over the past thirty years, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan have seen their percentages of foreign residents steadily rise to 2-4% of total population. Much of this consists of flows of migrant workers \u2013 often on short-term contracts without the potential for citizenship \u2013 to fill economic niches left vacant (or created) by demographic change. Taiwan, for example, now has some 800,000 migrant workers \u2013 primarily from Southeast Asia \u2013 filling crucial roles in construction, industry, and eldercare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In China, the vast flows of rural migrant workers to urban cities that powered decades of rapid economic growth over the reform era are plateauing<\/a> in number. And China\u2019s own population of domestic migrant workers is also rapidly aging \u2013 with a median age of 42 (in 2021), compared with 34 (in 2008). Yet with virtually no labor flows into China, it remains unclear who, if anyone, will emerge to fill the void. [Robots and technology? Those have not allowed far wealthier countries elsewhere in East Asia to avoid reliance on international labor flows. Why should China be different?] <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last, Beijing\u2019s leaders themselves could very well further harm China\u2019s demographic prospects through their own short-sighted policies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
China\u2019s demographic trajectory is far from unusual. It is following in the path set by the rest of East Asia. Japan\u2019s population peaked<\/a> in 2008 and has been steadily declining since, with total population now falling by roughly half a million per year. Taiwan<\/a> tipped over into negative growth in 2020, South Korea<\/a> in 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n