A Study Of The Effects Of Population Age Structure On Household Consumption

Along with rapid economic growth,China’s consumption rate has shown a long-term downward trend. From the perspective of the population age structure, this paper studied the relationship between the changes in population age structure and the household consumption from the theoretical and empirical point of view. Therefore, this study can serve as a reference to develop the future population policies and economic policies.Referencing the indicator population age structure of consumer economics theory, we established a consumption function model that include the variable population age structure, then made an empirical test of the model by using the China’s micro data from China Household and Finance Survey. We get the following conclusions: we found out that the children’s stage has significantly positivie effect on consumption, in which the preshchool children(0-5 age) dependency ratio on househould consumption is more senstive because of the increasing expenditure of food and preschool education, and the old has a weak positive impact on houshold consumption; In the comparison between urban and rural familys, we found out that the children dependency ratio has significant positive effects on consumption, the old dependency ratio of urban family does not have a significant impact on the household consumption, while the old dependency ratio of rural family has a negative impact on the household consumption because of bequest motives and precautionary savings; Consumption structure significantly vary across different ages, a higher expenditure share on food, residence, and education for the youth, a higher expenditure share on medicine and medical services for the elderly, the old dependency ratio of rural family has a negative impact on the household consumption of clothing, residence and household facilities.