Guangdong, Shandong, Henan and Jiangsu are on their own more populous than Germany, Europe’s largest country. Whether the total population is
or 1.44 billion, the simple logistical and administrative challenge of administering a nation of this size and building an infrastructure that effectively weaves it all together is a challenge beyond the ability of most governments.
Physical distance forces devolution of power that few governments have to contemplate. The gaps between
are on an epic scale, with GDP per capita of US$25,000 in places like Shanghai and Beijing compared to just US$5,000 in Heilongjiang in the
and Gansu in the northwest.
The country’s sheer size assures it of a massive domestic market, even while average incomes remain well below those of average German or American households, and a unique opportunity to generate economies of scale in all areas of consumer manufacturing. This has made China a formidable competitor as it has lifted millions out of
, even before its middle-class consumer economy begins to bulge.
Neither the steady ageing of the population – life expectancy has risen from 66.8 years in 1980 to 76.9 in 2019 – nor the sharply falling birth rate often attributed to the one-child policy are going to change this any time soon.
The role the one-child policy has played in bringing down fertility rates – which have fallen from 6.7 children per woman in 1950 to 1.7 in 2019 – is moot. Without
in place, India’s fertility rate has fallen from 5.9 to 2.2 in the same period. In the Philippines, it has fallen from 7.4 to 2.5.
02:33
China birth rate at 60-year low as new census shows population grew slightly to 1.412 billion
Worldwide, fertility rates have fallen from 5.05 to 2.4. China’s
might have played a part in the country’s shift, but so has
– more than 60 per cent of Chinese now live in cities, compared to 20 per cent in the 1980s – and perhaps most importantly better education and work opportunities for women.
Yes, the country is ageing quickly, and fewer
will undoubtedly mean there will be a smaller proportion of the population that are of working age, or between 16 and 59. But whether this will make it hard to get rich, and whether the cost of supporting the old will become an unsupportable burden, is again moot. China’s future wealth is likely to be linked to rising productivity and skill and technology intensity.
Whether China has more or fewer hands will be much less important than workers’ education and the skills they can apply. Letting people work beyond the current
will also affect the country’s dependency ratio, keeping skilled people
longer without forcing them prematurely into depending on state or company pensions.
As people fret over the declining numbers of Chinese youngsters going through the education system towards the workforce, they seem to ignore that, if you care about
, China’s success in slowing its population growth and reducing poverty has made a massive contribution. Even with China’s success in slowing its own population growth, we still face the prospect of the world’s population rising from today’s 7.7 billion to perhaps 11.2 billion by 2100, with all that it implies for global demand for food, energy and natural resources.
Imagine what
and our climate challenges might be if China had not succeeded in slowing its population growth. Should we be enthusiastic that India’s population is expected to peak at 1.64 billion by 2050, and that Africa’s population is expected to rise from 1.37 billion now to more than 4.72 billion in 2080, with Nigeria alone growing from 206 million today to 733 million in 2100?
As important as China’s population numbers are, factors like its hectic urbanisation, the widening wealth gap between its
, improved education and employment opportunities for Chinese women and success in improving productivity by lifting skill and technology intensity are likely to be bigger influences on whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about China’s economic future and its role in the world.
The contrast with India illustrates the story. It might be set to add 200 million people in the coming three decades and see a steady rise in young workers joining the labour force, but as long as India remains largely rural with low-skill workers with low productivity, that plentiful
will remain a curse rather than a blessing.
On balance, the world needs fewer people, not more. It needs those people to be well-educated, have high skills and drive high levels of productivity. It needs them to live long and in good health. By those measures, whatever the population numbers revealed this week, China has done better than most of us.
David Dodwell researches and writes about global, regional and Hong Kong challenges from a Hong Kong point of view
