Analysis On The Economic Effect Of Population Aging In China

For the traditional research on the relationship between the population change andeconomic growth, mainly focus on the relationship between the total population or speedof population growth and economic growth. The discussion about demography transitionis focus on the natural population growth rate, the total fertility rate, is lack of the studyon the relationship between the age structure and economic growth. The variations of agestructure will surely pass on to economic growth through a series of intermediate factors.The impact of these variations includes economic impacts and social impacts; include theeffect on savings, consumption, investment and international balance of payment; alsowith effect on micro levels such as family structure variation, aged parents support andchildren raising. However, systematic researches on the relationship between China’s agestructure variation and economic growth are still insufficient. It needs to make thoroughanalysis and research on the economic effects of the age structure variation, especiallythe conducting mechanism between age structure variation and economic growth.During the process of population age structure variation, the decrease of dependencyload will form a very important “structure dividend” to economic growth----thedemographic dividend. There is much theoretical and practical value in researching theimpact of demographic dividend on economic growth. Bloom and Williamson early toknow that it would appear the change of the structure of population age during theprocess from "high birth rates, high mortality" to "low birth, low mortality".In China, how to fully exploit the structural advantage brought by age structurevariation is an important inspiration for keeping the medium-and-long-term economicgrowing fast in future.This paper discusses the demographic dividend during the process of demographytransition in China. And it put emphasis on researching the age structure variation and thedemographic dividend brought by it. The research is composed of the following parts:firstly, it establishes the conducting mechanism between population age structurevariation and economic growth----saving mechanism and consumption mechanism.Secondly, it analyzes the effects of population age structure variation in “East AsiaMiracle”, then it builds the HW model to analyze the impact of Asia’s demographicdividend on saving rates. At last, it analyzes the conducting mechanism between population age structure and net export (current account balance and capital accountbalance) mechanism.And the paper is made of seven chapters. First is the introduction. This part explainsthe research background, the value and the subject of the research. It also illustrates themethodology, the content and the framework of the research.In chapter2, it introduces the theory background and literature review. This chaptergives a review to population transition theory, moderates population scale theory,population variation and economic growth theory. Then it gives a systematic introductionabout related researches at home and abroad from4sides: the theoretic and empiricalresearches, the latest developments and the evaluation.In chapter3, it analyzes the impact of population age structure variation on grosssaving rate and consumption rate. On the basis of life-cycle saving rate function aboutpopulation age structure variable, this chapter estimates with Leff model to analyzes theimpact of population age structure on saving rate and consumption rate.Chapter4discusses the impact of population aging on household consumption inChina based on the AIDS model. And this chapter analyzes the endowment patterns usingthe data of CHARLS.Chapter5analyzes the impact of age structure variation on the economic growth ofEast Asia. First we illustrate the demographic transition of the nations and regions ofEast Asia by establishing the demographic transition index. On basis of the index webuild the Higgins&Williamson model and empirically analyze the mechanism of saving.The results show that the demographic transition significantly promotes the saving ratesof Asian, while the economic and social development policies in Asia provideopportunities for the use of demographic transition effect.Chapter6analyzes the effect of age structure variation on the international balanceof payments using Herbertsson&Zoega model. This chapter estimates the effects ofchildren’s proportion and elderly people’s proportion on current account and capitalaccount in detail.In chapter7, it puts forward some policies and suggestions for continuing thedemographic dividend in aging China.