Table of Content

29 March 2023, Volume 47 Issue 2

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The Population Decline in China: A Global Perspective

Zheng Zhenzhen

2023, 47(2):  3-10. 

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The world has experienced population growth and fertility decline for nearly a century and has entered an era of deceleration of growth. China’s population change is consistent with the global trend, but the time length of the whole process has been significantly compressed. While the population size has peaked, China has quickly become an ageing society. Nevertheless, low fertility, stagnation or negative growth, and population ageing are not unique to China. In the 21st century, both China and the world need to face these challenges. China must adapt to these demographic changes and actively respond to the challenges as soon as possible.

Negative Population Growth in China: Characteristics, Challenges, and Responses

Zhai Zhenwu, Jin Guangzhao

2023, 47(2):  11-20. 

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China's negative population growth is an objective law of population development, with a unique transition process and development trend. In the future, long-term and rapid negative population growth may pose challenges to the economy. It is necessary to cope with negative population growth actively by establishing a fertility support policy system, improving population quality, optimizing the spatial layout of the population, raising per capita consumption, and enhancing labor productivity.

China's Declining Population Does Not Imply Declining Economic Growth: The Perspective of Steady Growth of Human Capital

Li Daokui, Li Keaobo, Wu Shuyu

2023, 47(2):  21-30. 

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In 2022, China saw a population decline while just entering the rank of high-income countries. This has caused widespread anxiety in Chinese society. Worldwide, many analysts predict a rapid decline in China's economic growth due to the peaking of the population. However, we disagree with this by arguing that it is the stock of human capital, rather than the amount of young labor, that determines the growth potential of a country. By our estimates, due to continued improvements in public health and education, China’s aggregate human capital is positioned to continue growing steadily between now and 2050. Chinese aggregate human capital in 2050 will be equivalent to 1.644 billion by the health and education standard of 2020. This implies that the Chinese economy has the potential to continue growing at the pace of 5.9%, 4.9%, and 4.1% for the coming three decades, respectively. The key to realizing this potential for economic growth is to establish pragmatic policies to fully utilize China's increasing human capital.

Promoting Transitions of Human Resource Development to Effectively Respond to Negative Population Growth

Ge Junyi, Duan Chengrong

2023, 47(2):  31-38. 

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Chinese population development has entered an era of long-term negative growth with various new characteristics, which will keep normalization. At this historical juncture, we need to have a comprehensive understanding of the overall situation of population development and cope with the problems accompanying negative population growth. To effectively handle the negative population growth, we propose a ”quality, allocation, and openness” human resources development path. To be specific, we need to make the most of the population quality dividend, optimize the human resources allocation in accordance with the trend of population flows, and attract overseas intellectual resources by approaching the international human resources market.

Rethinking Improving China's Population Development Strategy from the Perspective of Population Security

He Dan, Liu Zhongyi

2023, 47(2):  39-47. 

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The concept of population security is one of the core concepts in the field of population development in the new era, as well as its extension, interpretation, and enrichment of a holistic approach to national security. Population security is not only the direct embodiment of a holistic approach to national security but also has a profound impact on political security, national defense, geopolitical security, cultural and ideological security, and socioeconomic security. China's population has undergone a fundamental transformation. The population development strategy in the new era urgently needs to integrate the perspective of population security and work together from the two dimensions of promoting population development and maintaining population security. We suggest to comprehensively implement a holistic approach to national security in the population development strategy, to strengthen population prediction and early warning, and prevent all kinds of population risks, to optimize the population development strategy to cope with the birth decline, to actively respond to population ageing and improve the ability to prevent risks, and finally to improve the population security system and promote family development to become a national strategy.

Influencing Factors and Spatial Heterogeneity of China's Interprovincial Migration: An Analysis of the 7th Census Data

Wang Guixin, Chen Yujiao

2023, 47(2):  48-62. 

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This paper uses the 7th census data to investigate influencing factors and spatial heterogeneity of China's interprovincial migration destinations from 2015 to 2020. The results show that recent changes in the macroeconomic environment and the New-type Urbanization Plan have attracted migrants to move back to the less developed provinces in central and western China. Meanwhile, the difference in regional economic development has narrowed. Therefore, the destination for interprovincial migration is decentralized. Economic factors such as the urban-rural income gap are still the most important factors affecting migration choice, while their influences have weakened significantly. Spatial factors have also been less important due to better traffic conditions. Migrants tend to move to places with good humanistic and social environments. There is also spatial heterogeneity in the influencing factors on interprovincial migration destinations.

Trends in the Size and Structure of Disabled Older Adults in Rural China

Han Runlin, Han Xiaojing, Zhang Lilong, Lu Xiaoli

2023, 47(2):  63-77. 

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This research projects the population size, structure and disability rate of rural older adults based on the six waves of Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey data from 2002 to 2018 and the Seventh National Census data. The result shows that the population size and the proportion of rural people aged 65 and above will increase from 90.35 million and 17.72% in 2020 to 124.38 million and 33.14% in 2035. The ADL disability rate of rural older adults will drop from 5.76% in 2020 to 4.92% in 2035, due to the decline of age-specific disability risk and the ageing population structure. Men's and women's disability rates will drop from 4.92% and 6.55% to 3.79% and 5.87%, respectively. The rural elderly population with disabilties is showing a trend towards severe disability and ageing. The decline in the total disability rate is mainly caused by the rapid decline in the mild disability rate, which was brought about by the reduction in the risk of age-specific disability. The moderate disability rate declined slightly and the severe disability rate continued to rise. The rate of moderate and severe disability are both around 4%. The study provides reliable data for the improvement of rural older care service capabilities and the promotion of long-term care insurance coverage to rural residents.

The Influence of COVID-19 on Fertility Intention under the Three-Child Policy

Shi Zhilei, Shao Xi

2023, 47(2):  78-95. 

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COVID-19 has a huge impact on society. It is urgent to study how COVID-19 affects fertility intention. Based on the Hubei Fertility Survey, the study finds that COVID-19 has a positive effect on the fertility intention. As the risk level of epidemic increases by one unit, there would be an increase of 39.6% in the fertility intention of the second child and an increase of 55.6% in that of the third child. Further analyses show that, for the second child fertility intention, COVID-19 has a more significant promotion effect on groups with high self-rated socio-economic status, high education level, and non-agricultural Hukou. For the third child fertility intention, COVID-19 only promoted the fertility intention of groups with high self-rated socio-economic status, high education level, and non-agricultural Hukou. These results have import implications for understanding the fertility changing trend during the post-epidemic era.

The Mechanisms of House Prices on Family's Fertility Decision-making：Empirical Analysis Based on CFPS Data

Zhang Fen, Fang Yingfeng, Peng Haochen

2023, 47(2):  96-111. 

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In the context of rising housing prices and declining fertility rates in the past few years in China, the article first builds a model to explain the relationship between housing prices and family fertility decisions from a theoretical perspective. Then, from an empirical point of view, based on the panel data from 2010-2018 China Family Panel Studies, it is found that the urban housing prices in the counties where the family is located have a significant negative impact on their current fertility decision. Such impact also differentiates among sub-groups. Moreover, after the Chinese government carrying out the “two-child” policy, the negative impact becomes even stronger than before. In terms of the mechanism, housing prices have a crowding-out effect on fertility, and it can also affect fertility through reducing women's self-identity and increasing the cost of raising children. In addition, high housing prices have an inhibitory effect on marriage, which further exacerbates the negative impact on the fertility rate.

The Spatial Effect of Human Capital Agglomeration in China: Siphon or Diffusion?

Liu Jiaqiang, Huang Liyun, Sheng Wei, Tang Daisheng

2023, 47(2):  112-128. 

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This article builds the mechanism models of the spatial effect of human capital agglomeration on economic growth in view of education capital and health capital based on the analysis framework of Solow Growth Model. We examine the spatial effect of education capital and health capital accumulation on economic growth through Chinese provincial level panel data and the dynamic change of railway time distance between provinces. The results reveal that the dominant effects of education capital and health capital accumulation in space are the “diffusion effect” and the “siphon effect” respectively, and the two types of human capital demonstrate spatial heterogeneity. Moreover, with the increase of time distance between two provinces, the two types of human capital show nonlinear spatial patterns of inverted U and positive U respectively. Compared to the non-high-speed railway era, the spatial effect of human capital agglomeration in high-speed railway era is more significant. While the eastern area can't absorb the education capital diffusion effect of other areas, the central and western areas can benefit from the diffusion effect of education capital from other areas. The tilt and dispersion of health capital investment can be an effective tool to adjust the economic balanced growth of eastern, central, and western areas. Therefore, the study argues that human capital investment should systematically consider the coordination of time and space, moderately concentrated education investment is the best strategy, and health capital should adopt a spatial balance investment strategy.