As I See It | Are China’s ‘talent dividends’ enough to sustain the country’s rise?
- Some are questioning whether the nation can still reap demographic dividends given its rapidly greying population
- Improving the quality of the workforce is a move in the right direction, but China should also embrace technology
The shift has prompted many analysts to ask whether China can still reap the demographic dividends that enabled the country to become the world’s largest manufacturing base – propelling its breakneck economic growth in the last three decades.
Demographic dividends refer to a window of opportunity when the labour force of a country is large while both ends of the demographic curve – that determines the country’s dependency ratio – are much smaller.
China’s economic miracle was made possible by good timing since its large workforce was available as the country began to allow the market economy and international trade to boom.
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The ageing Chinese town where the one-child policy worked too well
Beijing only began to relax its controversial one-child policy – in place since the 1980s to control population growth – in the past eight years, as China’s population was ageing much faster than expected. The rules were eased in 2015, with couples allowed to have two children, and since 2021 couples have been allowed to have up to three children.
