Getting Rich after Getting Old: China’s demographic and economic transition in dynamic international context

Abstract

When incomes and living standards rise, households tend towards having fewer children, inducing a fall in the population growth rate. This is a pattern evident in the historical development of many countries once they have progressed beyond the Malthusian poverty trap (Day and Dowrick 2004). The resulting transition produces population ageing—a process whereby the proportion of old people within the total population increases (ILO 2009). In developing Asia in the post–Global Financial Crisis period, the speed of population ageing is among the biggest, if not the biggest, medium-term structural challenges (Park et al. 2012: xiii). The advent of ageing on such a scale is unprecedented. Population ageing affects considerably how economies behave (Stephenson and Scobie 2002). Changes affect aggregate economic and demographic characteristics, including the relative number of people who are dependent or working age, capacity for work, productivity, income distribution and investment. (Clark et al. 1978: 920).