The number of working-age people in China fell over the past decade while the population barely grew, adding to strains on an aging society.
A woman plays with a child near elderly people on wheelchairs sunbathing on a compound of a commercial office building in Beijing on Monday, May 10, 2021. China’s population growth is falling closer to zero as fewer couples have children, the government announced Tuesday, May 11, 2021, adding to strains on an aging society with a shrinking workforce.
The ruling Communist Party has enforced birth limits since 1980 to restrain population growth but worries the workforce is shrinking. It has eased birth limits, but couples are put off by high costs, cramped housing and job discrimination against mothers. China, along with Thailand and some other developing Asian countries that are aging fast, faces what economists call the challenge of whether it can grow rich before it grows old. Some warn China faces a “demographic time bomb.”
The working-age population will fall from three-quarters of the total in 2011 to just above half by 2050, according to Lu. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting Chinese economic growth of 8.4% this year following a rebound from thepandemic. The Communist Party wants to double output per person from 2020 levels by 2035, which would require annual growth of about 4.7%.
Demographers say official birth limits concealed what would have been a further fall in the number of children per family.
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