The Effect Of Population Age Structure On The Economic Development In Guangdong Province

Relationship between population condition and economic developmenthas been receiving attention from demographers and economists. There are many aspectsabout population, including quantity, quality, structure, etc. In Marxist population theory,population development is not only determined by economic development, but alsoaffects it at the same time, promoting or holding back it.Age structure, as one of physical attributes of a population, is significant toeconomic development, because a population is a unification of producers and consumerswhich are related to age. As is all known that infants and youngsters cannot work, andthey need to be brought up by their parents. They are pure consumers. And so are the old,though some of them are still working. The young aged below 14 and the old aged over65 are called dependent people by economists. Oppositely, the people aged between 15and 64, named working-age people, make up of the main members of labor force. Mostof them work and contribute to the economic development. So, the population agestructure, i.e. the proportion of the working-age people to the dependent ones, is reallyrelated to economic development.This paper, in a perspective on Demographic Dividend, studies the effect ofpopulation age structure on economic development in Guangdong province. It iscomposed of 6 chapters as below:Chapter 1 is an introduction, referring to the background, theoretical basic, researchsummary, meaning, and explanations to some related terms. In chapter 2, we review thepopulation change in growth, migration, age structure, and dependent rate since 1949 inGuangdong. Chapter 3 includes a validation about the demographic dividend inGuangdong and policy environment in which it works. We analyze the effect of laborforce supply on economic development, i.e. the first demographic dividend, by applyinga Cobb-Douglas Production Function in chapter 4. And then, we research the second demographic dividend-the effect of population dependent rate on savings rate-byconstructing a regression function in chapter 5. The last chapter is a conclusion. We cometo these conclusions: (1) the current population age structure of Guangdong is on thethreshold from adult-type to old-type. Up to the present since 1978, the young dependentrate presents a dropping first, and then a slow rising, with a rapid dropping at last. At thesame time, the old dependent rate is keeping rising at a very low speed. (2) Labor forcesupply has taken an important role in economic development since 1978, but the degreeof it changed from high to low. (3) Population dependent rate brings an obvious influenceon savings rate. The young dependent rate is positive to savings rate, and the olddependent rate is negative to it.