A simple survey of population aging, how to view population aging?

The opportunities and challenges brought by aging to cities and towns and even the whole society coexist, and on the whole, the challenges outweigh the opportunities. Aging will bring about a decline in social productivity and a shortage of labor, and the overall impact on cities and towns is very huge (the pressure on aging is the same in all tier cities), especially for young people.

First, the secondary industry has a great impact.

For aging towns (including rural areas), empty nesters have become a common phenomenon in both urban and rural areas, in rural areas, a large number of young and middle-aged labor force through various channels to go out to study, work, and finally settle in the city, only families with financial ability can send the elderly to more economically developed areas to support, most of the elderly become left-behind elderly.

The situation of the elderly in urban areas is similarly disadvantaged, and the proportion of children who do not work with their parents is high. Although the old saying goes, "Parents are here, don't travel far", in modern society, it has become the norm for children to work in other places and study abroad, and the living form of children and parents has also changed. In particular, after marriage, as high as two-thirds of children live separately from their parents, living separately or away from their parents.

The problem of supporting urban empty-nesters is also very prominent.

As of the end of 2021, there were 267.36 million elderly people aged 60 and above in China, accounting for the total population; The number of elderly people aged 65 and above in China reached 200.56 million, accounting for the total population. The dependency ratio of the elderly population aged 65 and above in China.

In the past 10 years, the proportion of people aged 60 and over in the total population of the country has been increasing, from 2012 to 2021.

The proportion of people aged 65 and over in the country has also been increasing, from 2012 to 2021. In addition, from 2012 to 2021, the dependency ratio of the elderly population aged 65 and above in the country increased from .

Population aging is expected to remain a prominent problem for China for a long time to come

At a press conference held by the National Health Commission on September 20 this year, Wang Haidong, director of the Department of Aging of the National Health Commission, said that it is estimated that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the total number of elderly people aged 60 and above will exceed 300 million, accounting for more than 20%, entering the stage of moderate aging. Around 2035, the elderly population aged 60 and above will exceed 400 million, accounting for more than 30% of the total population, entering the stage of severe aging.

In addition, according to **, by 2050, the size and proportion of China's elderly population, the old-age dependency ratio and the social dependency ratio will reach a peak one after another. The continuous increase in the elderly population and the deepening of the aging of the population have brought challenges to the supply of public services and the sustainable development of the social security system, and the task of coping with them is very heavy.

Population ageing is a phenomenon in which the distribution of the country's population is skewed towards a higher age.

There are two growth peaks in the elderly population over 65 years old, the peak growth is from 2018 to 2022, mainly due to the first "baby boom" birth population in New China, which has entered an aging period during this period; The peak of growth is from 2027 to 2038, which is the "baby boom" after the "Great Famine", and the "baby boom" birth population has entered the aging stage.

The aging of the population will increase the burden on the working-age population, and will also have an impact on social public welfare, medical and health care. With the progress of science and technology, new ways of providing for the elderly are becoming more and more popular, and a series of high-tech products such as TV boxes designed only for parents have emerged in the society to improve the quality of life of the elderly in their later years and solve the problem of loneliness of the empty nesters to the greatest extent.

Major controversy

In response to the view that "the aging of the population is brought about by the family planning policy", the person in charge of the National Health and Family Planning Commission said, "China's aging problem has a certain relationship with the family planning policy, but this is by no means the main reason, this is a common phenomenon in human society. ”

By 2035, China's labor force will remain above 800 million, which is equivalent to the population of all European countries combined. Therefore, the problem of the number of labor force in China will not appear for a long time, but the quality of labor force needs to be improved.

Summary. Hello dear, glad to answer for you. Population aging has become a global phenomenon, but the aging of the Chinese population is large-scale, deep and fast.

Analysis of the current situation and trends of population ageing.

Hello dear, glad to answer for you. Population aging has become a global phenomenon, but the aging of the Chinese population is large-scale, deep and fast.

The aging trend of Chinese population will show five characteristics: 1The elderly population is huge.

In 2020, China's elderly population over 65 years old will reach 100 million, accounting for the total population, and one in every four elderly people in the world is a Chinese. It is estimated that the number of people over 65 years old in China will reach a peak of 100 million in 2057, accounting for a proportion of the total population. 2.

The population is aging at a rapid rate. In 2001, China's population over 65 years old exceeded 7, marking the entry into an aging society, and it took 21 years to enter a deep aging in 2021, when the proportion of the population aged 65 and above exceeded 14, which was shorter than France's 126 years, the United Kingdom's 46 years, and Germany's 40 years. 3.

The problem of aging and empty nesting is becoming increasingly prominent. In 2020, China's population aged 80 and above was 36.6 million, and it is expected to increase to 100 million in 2050. 4.

The old-age dependency ratio has risen sharply, and the burden of old-age care has increased. The old-age dependency ratio in 2020 is expected to exceed 50 by 2050, which means that every two young people need to support one elderly person. Raising the elderly and raising children is costly, and young people are under pressure at both ends.

5.Grow old before you get rich. Chinese's per capita GDP is close to the lower limit of developed economies, but the degree of aging has exceeded the average level of middle- and high-income economies, and will face dual pressures of economic growth and pension burden.

In the face of the aging situation, a multi-level old-age security system should be built, and it should be promoted in terms of top-level design, departmental coordination, regional coordination, and stimulating the enthusiasm of market players. First, at the institutional level, the three pillars of the three pillars form a differentiated positioning, reasonably defining the pension responsibilities of enterprises, enterprises and individuals. Expand and strengthen the first pillar to meet the basic old-age security, and actively develop the second and third pillars to meet more diversified old-age security needs.

Second, in terms of fundraising and investment, we will promote the policy of gradual delayed retirement, and vigorously encourage the development of the second and third pillars through fiscal and taxation policies, automatic joining, default investment tools, portability and other means. Build a coordinated development system of pension and capital market, guide long-term funds such as pension to enter the market, and consolidate the asset allocation and risk management capabilities of financial institutions. Third, at the level of the pension industry, we will increase the financial support and exploration of the pension industry and optimize the supply of pension services.

Actively cultivate the silver economy and promote the high-quality development of the cause of the elderly. Fourth, at the level of pension model, vigorously develop the "Internet + pension" smart pension service system, promote the transformation of the elderly, and ensure the high-quality and dignified retirement life of the elderly.

First of all, we should emphasize the all-round development of people, and from the perspective of coping with population aging and the whole life cycle, we should emphasize the lifelong development of people.

Because whether it is the problem of aging at the individual level or the problem of the elderly at the group level, it is a dynamic development process.

If a person is not prepared in his or her middle age, he or she will not be able to enjoy the corresponding social security once he or she reaches old age.

In other words, if the problems of the young and middle-aged groups are not solved, they will inevitably evolve into problems of the elderly groups over time.

This change of perspective requires us to move the threshold of policy intervention forward, comprehensively solve the problems of "childbirth, education, employment, retirement and pension" of different age groups, and guide citizens to fully prepare for the material, health, skills and spirit of future pension in their young age, so as to avoid the continuation or accumulation of problems among young and middle-aged people into old age.

Shift from a group perspective to a structural perspective.

The group perspective emphasizes "heterogeneity", mainly from the perspective of the relationship between general and particular, from the perspective of universal needs and special needs, and looks at the special problems faced by the elderly group.

The structural perspective emphasizes "coordination and sustainability", and mainly looks at the "population aging problem" and "elderly problem" from the perspective of the contradictory relationship between the change of population age structure and the change of economic and social structure.

The shift from a group perspective to a structural perspective is conducive to jumping out of the misunderstanding of "talking about the elderly on the issue of the elderly", and effectively thinking and dealing with how to actively respond to the aging of the population from a strategic and overall position.

Shift from a partial perspective to a whole-person perspective.

China has now entered a well-off society in an all-round way, and the needs of the elderly are upgrading in all aspects, not just the most basic survival material needs.

We should examine the growing needs of the elderly for a better life from the full dimension of "physical, mental, social and spiritual", and avoid focusing only on the needs of the elderly in one or several areas to solve the "problems of the elderly".

Establishing a "whole-person perspective" is conducive to preventing the tendency to narrow the "problems of the elderly". For example, the "elderly problem" is reduced to "pension problem", and the "pension problem" is reduced to "pension service problem", and it is believed that as long as the pension service problem is solved, we can successfully cope with the challenge of aging.

The disadvantages of an aging populationThe declining birthrate is the inevitable result of the increasing pressure on life and the prevalence of timely pleasure, which will bring disaster to families and countries.

1.The burden on society has increased.

2.The development of social and cultural welfare undertakings is not suitable for the aging of the population3The family pension function is weakened.

4.The demand for medical care and life services among the elderly is prominent.

5.As a direct consequence of an ageing population, the labor force is shrinking, which will lead to a sharp decline in total output.

6.The total fertility rate is extremely low.

Due to the aggravation of the aging population, the burden of China's old-age security, the pressure on the construction of the old-age security system, the difficulty of the reform of the old-age insurance system, and the far-reaching impact of old-age security on social and economic development will be unprecedented.

In general, there are too few benefits for an aging population and many disadvantages. In the view of most economists, aging is synonymous with deceleration in growth. Older people have limited incomes and rely on savings to survive.

Compared to young people, the purchasing power of the elderly is significantly less and they will hardly consume expensive goods such as cars and real estate. For the macro economy, this means less savings, higher interest rates, depressed house prices, ......None of them are good for economic growth.

The scale of China's aging is unprecedented, and the degree of misalignment between the aging stage and the development stage is rare in human history. For example, in 2010, when the proportion of the population aged 65 and above reached about 12%, China's per capita GDP was less than 10,000 US dollars. At the same level of population aging, the GDP per capita of Germany, the United States and Japan is as high as about 10,000 000 US dollars, 10,000 US dollars and 10,000 US dollars, respectively. The reality of "growing old before getting rich" poses a major challenge to China's economic and social development, and it is urgent to find a way to balance economic growth and old-age security.

The historic change in population structure has brought certain challenges to the sustained and healthy development of China's economy in the medium and long term. From 2013 to 2018, China's labor force decreased by about 25.6 million people. According to the United Nations, China's working-age population will be reduced by 200 million by 2050.

At the same time, there is a clear trend of China's aging workforce. Data show that in the past seven years, the proportion of China's labor force aged 50 to 64 in the total labor force has increased by about one percentage point, while the growth rate of unit labor output has decreased by about one percentage point.

Demographic changes have led to a rapid growth in service-based consumption across the board. The acceleration of the aging process of the population has brought about the comprehensive and rapid growth of service-oriented consumption, and the "silver economy" contains huge space for industrial development and has become an important driving force for China's economic growth. However, from the supply side, the contradiction that the total supply of China's pension products and services is seriously insufficient, the structure is unreasonable, and the level is not high.

For example, China currently needs at least 10 million elderly care workers, but the actual number of employees is less than 1 million, and the gap rate of domestic elderly care and community day care is more than 55% and 70% respectively. It has become one of the tasks of supply-side structural reform to transform the comprehensive and rapidly expanding and escalating consumer demand of the elderly into a realistic driving force for industrial development and economic growth.

Demographic changes are also presenting a dilemma for China's macroeconomic policies. In the context of increasing downward pressure on the economy and the acceleration of the aging process, the choice space and flexibility of macroeconomic policies have been squeezed in both directions. Taking fiscal policy as an example, on the one hand, in order to effectively release market vitality to promote economic growth, greater tax cuts and fee reductions are needed, including greatly reducing the payment burden of enterprise pension insurance; On the other hand, the increasing degree of aging requires the continuous expansion of the scale of public expenditure related to the elderly.

Faced with the structural contradiction between growth and pension, China's fiscal policy will face a dilemma of promoting tax cuts and fee reductions and expanding old-age spending for a long time.