A Study On The Impact Of Population Aging On The Industrial Structure Upgrading In China

With the improvement of China’s economic level,life expectancy has been increasing.While under the influence of multiple factors such as national policies and fertility desire,the fertility rate shows a downward trend.The population aging becomes a concern.China has entered into the aging society in the early 21 st century.The proportion of the population aged 65 and above in 2021 has reached 14.2 percent,which means that China has entered an advanced stage of aging.Different from developed countries,China has entered the aging society when the economy is still underdeveloped,and the aging growth rate is relatively faster.In the case of incomplete institutional guarantee,the increasing population aging poses no small challenge to China’s economic development.China’s remarkable economic achievements largely benefit from the positive effects of the "demographic dividend".With the deepening of the aging of society,the disadvantages of the traditional industrial structure are emerging increasingly,so it is imperative to upgrade the industrial structure.The population is an important economic resources,the change of population’s age structure will inevitably have a certain impact on the industrial structure upgrading.Under the background of deepening population aging,only by clarifying the influence mechanism of population aging on industrial structure upgrading,can we put forward targeted countermeasures and suggestions to promote industrial structure upgrading.Therefore,this paper makes theoretical and empirical analysis on the basis of existing papers,deeply studies the impact of population aging on industrial structure upgrading and its mechanism.This paper firstly analyzes the existing relevant papers from the perspective of the action mode and effect of population aging on industrial structure upgrading,laying theoretical foundation for the subsequent research of this paper.Then it analyzes the current situation and characteristics of China’s population aging and industrial structure,manufacturing structure and service industry structure.Then,on the basis of the above,it analyzes the labor supply effect,labor endowment effect,human capital accumulation effect,aging burden effect and elderly consumption demand effect on industrial structure upgrading from the theoretical level.Then,an econometric model is established based on the provincial panel data to empirically analyze the impact of population aging on industrial structure upgrading,manufacturing structure upgrading and service industry structure upgrading,and verify the establishment of the influence mechanism mentioned above by using intermediary effect model.On this foundation,some conclusions and some corresponding proposals are put forward.The paper found that the population aging has a positive impact on industrial structure upgrading and the service industry structure upgrading,but it has a negative impact on manufacturing industry structure upgrading.This means that population aging can significantly promote the increase of the proportion of output value of secondary and tertiary industries and producer services,but is not conducive to the increase of the proportion of output value of capital and technology-intensive industry in manufacturing industry.For industrial structure upgrading,population aging mainly promotes industrial structure upgrading through labor endowment effect,human capital accumulation effect and elderly consumption demand effect,and inhibits industrial structure upgrading through labor supply effect.For manufacturing structure upgrading,population aging promotes manufacturing structure upgrading through labor supply effect,human capital accumulation effect and aging burden effect,and inhibits manufacturing structure upgrading through the elderly consumption demand effect.For service industry structure upgrading,population aging mainly promotes service industry structure upgrading through labor endowment effect,and inhibits service industry structure upgrading through human capital accumulation effect and elderly consumption demand effect.Among them,population aging will lead to the reduction of labor supply and the increase of the relative wage level,the level of human capital and family health care expenditure,and crowding out the financial expenditure on science and education.In the view of the above,some countermeasures are offered,including improving the social security system,appropriately delaying the retirement age,attaching importance to the accumulation of human capital and accelerating the development of the aging industry.