Demographic decline all but guarantees China’s eventual economic decline. But this process is likely to be gradual, not sudden, and the timing remains uncertain. China’s labor force is probably shrinking and it will continue to shrink indefinitely because the population is about to start shrinking, if it has not started to do so already. In 2021, Chinese birth rates fell to a record low. The median age in China is about half a year older than in the United States, and by 2042 it will be almost seven years older, or on a par with Japan today. China’s population will decline more quickly later this century, falling by more than 200 million people by 2060, according to one UN projection. As this decline unfolds, genuine economic growth will be essentially impossible.
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