Research On The Impact Of Population Aging On China's Economic Growth

As the most central and most active factor in economic growth,the population has a profound impact on economic growth.The shift in the age structure of population caused by changes in fertility and mortality rates has led to population agingafter continued slow changes during arelatively long period.At present,the population aging has become a common problem and affects the economic growth of all countries in the world.Since the 1950s,the problem of population aging has attracted the attention of Western scholars.Since the 1980s,Chinese scholars have gradually paid attention to the series of issues affecting the economic growth of domestic population aging.At present,the theoretical community has reached a consensus on the impact of population aging on economic growth.However,in practice,there is still a debate about the positive and negative effects of population aging on economic growth.The reasons for the controversy are mainly the difference of research perspectives and variables,or the analysis of the impact of population aging on economic growth from univariate factors such as labor,consumption,savings and human capital;or just taking these variables independently without systematic and comprehensive analysis.Based on the previous research,this paper aimsto depict the mechanism underlying the influence of the population aging on China's economic growth.To realize this aim,the current study assesses the comprehensive effects of population aging on economic growth through quantitatively analyzing the impact of labor force,savings and consumption of residents,human capitalobjectively.Further,the current study follows the scientific path of"problem introduction--mechanism analysis--empirical analysis--policy advice".Thus,the current study is of great theoretical and practical significance.Expanding the Solow model,the current study explored the underlying mechanism by analyzing and integrating population aging and human capital into Solow's economic growth model.The results show that human capital boost economic growth,while changes in population aging affectsactual investment and flat investment by altering labor input,capital investment,and human capital,and thus affectthe per capita output level and ultimately affect economic growth.They can influence the economic growth both positively and negatively,depending on the balance level of the two factors.Expanding the Solow model,we construct a model for the impact of population aging on China's economic growth.Firstly,population aging changes labor input through labor supply,and then affects economic growth;secondly,population aging changescapital investment so that influence the economic increasing through savings and consumption.Finally,Population aging changes economic growth through the technological progress which results from human capital changing.The population agingnot only directly affects economic growth,but also demonstrates its influence on economic growththrough labor supply,household savings and consumption,and human capital.Adopting SEM model,the current study found positive effect of ageing population on economic growth by analyzing the empirical data of population aging in the panel data of 31 provinces,cities,and regions in China from 2000 to 2015.The specific findings are as follows:first,Population aging has a positive effect on economic growth through labor supply,as the path analysis show that the labor supply increased as the increasing of the ratio of the elderlyand thus demonstrated a significant positive impact on economic growth.Second,although no significant,population aging has a positive effect on economic growth through household savings,given that the path analys is demonstrated a positive impact of ratio of the elderly on household savings.Third,the population aging has a negative effect on economic growth through household consumption,indexing by the negative impact of ratio of the elderly on household consumption,has a significant negative impact on economic growth.Finally,population aging has a positive effect on economic growth through human capital,based on the fact that the ratio of the elderly has a significant positive impact on human capital.Based aboveresults,we could conclude that the population aging is not only a stumbling block to economic growth,but also a positive factor to economic growth.This is conducive to changing the unscientific view of people on the issue of population aging so that they can face the relationship of economic growth and aging population more objectively.However,as the population aging gradually intensifies,the degree of positive and negative effects on economic growth through mediating variables may change.Ultimately,the comprehensive effect of the population aging on economic growth will change,even as developed countries become a factor that hinder economic growth,it will also become an important issue for the follow-up study in the future.In addition to the above-mentioned perspectives and the oretical developments,this study is a new attempt.In terms of the specific factors affecting the economic growth of population aging,there are the following innovations compared with the existing research.First of all,we used labor force participation rateas an indicator to measure labor supply when analyzing the population aging's influences on labor supply.Besides,we established the function of savings and consumption of Chinese residents by introducing the ageing variables and used GMM method to analyze how aging influences residents savings and consumption.What' s more,we tried to select the typical variables of the three aspects of science,technology and health human capital andused the entropy method to measure the level of human capital investment in each region instead of single variation when analyzed the impact of population aging on human capital,thus fully embodying the level of human capital investment.