Analysis On The Influence Of Population Aging On Technological Progress

China's population structure changes a lot in recent years.Since China entered into the aging society in 2000,the aging process has been accelerating,falling into the dilemma of "getting old before getting rich".From 2012 to 2016,the average dependency ratio of the elderly population in China was 12.5%.In 2016,the proportion of the population aged 65 or above reached 15%.The rapid aging of China's population age structure has brought great pressure and challenges to economy development in China.Obviously,population aging influences labor efficiency,investment in scientific field and human capital level,which influence technological progress.Therefore,population aging is an affecting factor of technological progress.It is of great theoretical and practical significance to study how population aging affects technological progress.From the view of theoretical analysis,based on the analysis of relevant literatures on population aging and technological progress as well as the analysis of theoretical mechanism,this paper holds that there are three main mechanisms of population aging affecting technological progress: “forcing mechanism”,“crowding out effect” and “age effect”.Specifically,firstly,the population aging increases labor cost,forces enterprises to carry out technological innovation to improve labor production efficiency,which is the "forcing mechanism".Secondly,the population aging,which increases the elderly burden and squeezes the government's investment in scientific research,has negative impact on technological progress,which is called "crowding out effect".Thirdly,the population aging reduces the level of human capital in the field of technology,thus dragging down the level of technological progress,which is the "age effect".From the view of empirical research,the paper uses total factor productivity(TFP)as the proxy variable of technological progress,then uses Solow residual value calculation method and DEA-Malmquist index to measure the TFP of China.Based on the panel data of 30 provinces from 2002 to 2016,the paper tests the effect of population aging on technical progress with multiple measurement methods,which tests the overall effect,influence mechanism and regional heterogeneity of aging population on technological progress respectively.The results show that the population aging has negative effect on technological progress on the whole,and population aging has negative impact on technological progress through the "crowding out effect" and "age effect",but it has positive effect through "forcing mechanism".On the eastern,central and western region,population aging has obvious difference effect on technological progress.The robustness test also reaches similar conclusion,and the empirical results support the theoretical analysis.Finally,based on theoretical and empirical analysis,this paper puts forward some relevant policy suggestions from the aspects of human capital,labor productivity and financial burden to weaken the negative impact of aging population on technological progress.