The Impact Of Population Aging On Economic Growth In China

After the reform and opening,our social and economic development is very rapid.Supported by the favorable social system,timely reform and opening up,appropriate national macroeconomic policies and favorable international environment,China’s economic growth is very rapid,and "demographic dividend" plays an important role in this process.However,as China enters the period of rapid population aging,“getting old before getting rich” and “getting old before getting ready” have become prominent features of China’s aging society.Population aging not only affects economic growth indirectly through influencing factor inputs such as labor supply,capital accumulation and technological progress,but also has a direct impact on the economy through consumption,import and export,government expenditure and investment.The change of the population age structure,the increase of the elderly population and the decline of the working-age population will not only lead to the shortage of national labor force,but also bring about a series of problems such as the decline of labor productivity and return on investment,and the imbalance of income distribution,thus affecting the sustainable development of our economy.Based on this,this thesis starts with the influence of population aging on economic growth from the perspective of technological progress,studies the influence of population aging on economic growth through theoretical analysis and empirical test,and provides effective reference for the formulation of population policy and the adjustment of strategic planning of economic development in the future.Based on life cycle theory,population transition theory and economic growth theory,this thesis discusses the impact of population aging on economic growth from the perspective of technological progress.Based on the panel data collected from 30 provincial levels from 1995 to 2021,OLS regression,fixed effect model,moderating effect model and panel smooth transition regression model(PSTR)were used to empirically analyze the influence of population aging on economic growth and the moderating effect of technological progress on the relationship between population aging and economic growth.The main research conclusions are as follows:First,the impact of population aging on economic growth in China is analyzed empirically.The results show that population aging of China has a suppressive effect on economic growth.To further explore the relationship between population and economy,the explanatory variables are replaced with the percentage of working-age population,and it is found that the workingage population has a positive contribution to economic growth.Next,the impact of population aging on the economy is analyzed for different levels of aging,different regions and different time periods.The results show that when the population aging is shallow,its negative impact on economic growth is not significant;when the population aging is deep,its negative impact on economic growth is very significant.The negative effect of population aging on economic growth is not significant in the eastern region;the negative effect of population aging on economic growth is very significant in the central and western regions,and the negative effect is stronger in the western region than in the central region.The analysis results of different time periods show that the negative effect of population aging on economic growth is not significant during 1995-2000,and the negative effect of population aging on economic growth is more significant after 2000,and the negative effect of population aging on economic growth is more significant during 2000-2010 than 2010-2021,which is due to the implementation of the development strategy of scientific and technological innovation after 2010 and the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology that somewhat weakened the negative effect of population aging on economic growth.Then,robustness tests are conducted using three different approaches,and the results all show that the model is robust.Next,it analyzes the influence mechanism of population aging on economic growth.The interaction term between population aging and technological progress is added to the baseline regression,and the results show that technological progress has a moderating effect on the negative effect of population aging,technological progress somewhat mitigates the negative effect of population aging on economic growth.The non-linear effects of the above mechanism tests are further analyzed using the PSTR model,and the results show that the effect of population aging on economic growth is non-linear under the effect of technological progress.When the level of technological progress is low,population aging has a depressive effect on economic growth;when the level of technological progress is high,the depressive effect of population aging on economic growth is weakened.When the explanatory variables are replaced with the percentage of elderly population,the regression results are basically consistent with the baseline regression.In conclusion,this thesis believes that population aging has an inhibitory effect on economic growth,but technological progress can weaken the inhibitory effect of population aging on economic growth.Therefore,the relevant state departments and institutions should grasp the development trend of China’s population aging in a timely and accurate manner,formulate population policy in line with China’s national conditions,objectively face the reality of population aging,change the previous negative sentiment on population aging,vigorously develop science and technology innovation activities,promote the improvement of social science and technology innovation level.