Yet more reasons for China to change course
Posted By Jennie Chancey on May 2, 2012
From Mercatornet’s Demography is Destiny blog:
I thought today that I would follow up Shannon’s blogpost from last week about China’s demographic decline. This piece from the Economist shows that the inexorable rise of the Dragon will be hindered by its demographic Achilles heel. According to the UN medium variant population projection, China’s population will dip to below 1.3 billion in 2050 (assuming that its very low fertility rate starts to recover). However, if its fertility rate remains at about 1.5-1.6 children per women then China will have less than 1 billion people in 2060. Thus, China can no longer be considered the factory of the world – its workforce will actually start to shrink in absolute terms after 2013. If China wants to continue to supply its hungry factories with hands then it will need to look offshore for workers. Who knows what problems large scale immigration will bring to China, it is, after all, a country that does not have a history of integrating migrants in large numbers in recent times….
I thought today that I would follow up Shannon’s blogpost from last week about China’s demographic decline. This piece from the Economist shows that the inexorable rise of the Dragon will be hindered by its demographic Achilles heel. According to the UN medium variant population projection, China’s population will dip to below 1.3 billion in 2050 (assuming that its very low fertility rate starts to recover). However, if its fertility rate remains at about 1.5-1.6 children per women then China will have less than 1 billion people in 2060. Thus, China can no longer be considered the factory of the world – its workforce will actually start to shrink in absolute terms after 2013. If China wants to continue to supply its hungry factories with hands then it will need to look offshore for workers. Who knows what problems large scale immigration will bring to China, it is, after all, a country that does not have a history of integrating migrants in large numbers in recent times.
Read the full piece at THIS LINK.
About The Author
Comments
Leave a Reply
Please note: Comment moderation is currently enabled so there will be a delay between when you post your comment and when it shows up. Patience is a virtue; there is no need to re-submit your comment.
You must be logged in to post a comment.