Abstract: By saying that "India will surpass China in demographic dividend," the Western thought has turned population problems of developing countries to "demographic dividend." This paper briefly reviews some Western studies that leads to the Western thought on the relationship between population and economy.It concludes that similar studies by Chinese scholars,which reach a conclusion that demographic dividend contributed 27% China’s economic growth,have serious flaws.While "getting old before getting rich" may be one of the characteristics of population aging in China,many unique factors make the aging effects in China much weaker than that in the West.Aging in the West has been so far accompanied by increasing unemployment problem,and whether transitional China with 200 million surplus labors will face similar problem should have caught more attention.Currently,the lagged effects of population growth of China have entered its fully demonstrated period.If China’s population policy changes to encourage population growth,it will be a big mistake.

Keywords: Demographic Dividend, Aging, Lagged Effects of Population Growth

摘要： 西方"印度因人口红利将超越中国"说,无限夸大老龄化问题,将发展中国家人口问题最终变成了"人口红利"。文章评论这一思潮依据的若干西方研究,分析得出中国经济增长27%由人口红利贡献的国内研究存在严重瑕疵。分析指出,因"未富先老"中国老龄化效应必远弱于西方。迄今西方老龄化与增生失业而非劳动力短缺相伴随,这是经济转型期我国应真正引起高度关注的问题。文章认为从多方面看,随经济规模扩大,我国人口问题滞后效应明显进入充分展现期,人口政策如转向鼓励增加人口,将会是一次重大失误。

关键词: 人口红利, 老龄化, 人口增长滞后效应