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Report: Ageing society to dull China's labour edge
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-08-23 16:20 Growing to an aging society, China will inevitably
lose the advantage in labor force, and its economic development will slow down
as a result, said a new report of the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences.
With the successful birth control measures, China will have
fewer young people to support the economic growth and the aging society in 50
years, said the newly published Green Paper on Population and Labor.
Cai
Chuang, one of the authors of the report said as result of the family planning
policy, China's natural growth rate dropped to less than six per 1,000 in
2004.
It took China only 30 years to complete the road of birth control
while the developed countries used more than 100 years, said Cai, adding that
one of the side effects is an aging society.
China has currently 100.55
million aged above 65, accounting for 7.7 percent of the total. It is forecasted
that the aged population will reach 170 million in 2010, 12.5 percent of the
total, and 243 million, 17 percent of the total in 2020, according to China
National Committee on Aging.
"China will be the only country in the world
that grows old before becoming rich," said Cai.
The aging trend is also
shown in the country's labor force, Cai said.
China Population and
Development Research Center said the amount of China's labor force expects to
rise until reaching the peak of 997 million in 2016, but then decline each
year.
"The supply of labor force, one of the basic advantages of China's
economic development, is not optimistic in the future," said Cai.
China's
economic growth depends largely on labor-intensive manufacturing, and the
situation can not be changed for a long time, Cai said.
The green paper
reported that the problem has already emerged in some regions including the
Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta, where the supply of labor force
could not meet the demand since 2004.
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