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标题：China's low fertility may not hinder future prosperity
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作者：Guillaume Marois ; Stuart Gietel-Basten ; Wolfgang Lutz 等
期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2021
卷号：118
期号：40
DOI：10.1073/pnas.2108900118
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Significance China has the world’s largest national population and is rapidly catching up with the United States in terms of having the status as the world's largest economy. In this context, recent reports about unexpectedly low levels of fertility have given rise to speculation that the resulting population stagnation/decline and rapid aging may pose a major obstacle to continued prosperity in the future. We show that, depending on the indicator of demographic dependency used, the future may look very different. When associated with rapid increases in human capital, low fertility rates may not pose such a significant obstacle to continued development over the coming decades. Whether this will be the case may have profound geopolitical and global economic consequences. China’s low fertility is often presented as a major factor which will hinder its prosperity in the medium to long term. This is based on the assumed negative consequences of an increasing old-age dependency ratio: a simplistic measure of relative changing age structures. Based on this view, policies to increase fertility are being proposed after decades of birth restriction policies. Here, we argue that a purely age structure–based reasoning which disregards labor force participation and education attainment may be highly misleading. While fertility has indeed fallen to low levels, human capital accumulation has been very strong—especially among younger cohorts. Factoring in the effects of labor force participation and educational attainment on productivity, a measure called “productivity-weighted labor force dependency ratio” can more accurately capture the economic implications of demographic change. When using this ratio, a much more optimistic picture of the economic (and social) future of China can be envisaged.
关键词：enfertility;China;aging;human capital;dependency ratio