| History and international experience show that population aging is an inevitable trend of social economic development,which will affect the labor supply,consumer demand,and industrial structure of a country or region.Although China entered aging society relatively late,it grows rapidly and has a large elderly population.The proportion of the elderly population now exceeds that of most developed countries.Population aging cannot be ignored.At the same time,China has long occupied laborintensive industries,relying on the comparative advantage of the demographic dividend,but population aging has brought about labor shortages and rising labor costs,reducing the profit of labor-intensive industries.The traditional development model is unsustainable.At present,China has entered a stage of high-quality development,taking innovation as the core driving force of economic growth,using technological innovation to promote industrial development,and striving to build a modern industrial system.However,problems such as insufficient ability for independent innovation,unbalanced development of the three major industries,and irrational internal structure of the industry,have become prominent.China’s industrial structure adjustment faces both major opportunities and severe challenges.Therefore,in the context of the gradual deepening of population aging,the in-depth implementation of innovationdriven strategies,and the urgent need of industrial structure upgrading,researching the impact of population aging on industrial structure adjustment from the perspective of technological innovation,has great theoretical and practical value for my country to effectively respond to population aging and promote industrial structure adjustment.According to previous studies,although the academic community is constantly studying the issue of population aging,most of them are committed to social security,medical care,long-term care,etc.,and there is little research on the economic effects of population aging.Especially with regard to the question of whether population aging hinders or promotes industrial structure adjustment,the academic community has not yet reached a unified conclusion.Scholars also rarely incorporate technological innovation,the key factor of industrial structure adjustment,into the research of population aging and industrial structure adjustment.Therefore,this study intends to explore the effects of population aging and technological innovation on industrial structure adjustment.First,this study sorts out and summarizes the existing research on population aging,industrial structure adjustment and population aging,technological innovation affecting industrial structure adjustment,to clarify the current research status.Then this study describes the current situation and development trend of China’s population aging and industrial structure;analyzes the mechanism of population aging affecting industrial structure adjustment,population aging affecting technological innovation,population aging affecting industrial structure adjustment through technological innovation,and regional heterogeneity.Simultaneously,based on current situation analysis and mechanism analysis,this study proposes research hypotheses.Finally,this study uses China’s provincial panel data from 1998 to 2018,using fixed effects models,mediation effects models,etc.to conduct empirical analysis,and conduct robustness tests to obtain more reliable research results.This study finds:(1)Population aging affects industrial structure adjustment through labor supply,consumer demand,labor productivity,and aging burden.The overall effect is a positive promotion.(2)Population aging promotes technological innovation through human capital accumulation and consumption upgrades.(3)Population aging promotes industrial structure adjustment through the intermediary effects of technological innovation,such as labor substitution effect,human capital accumulation effect,and consume demand effect.(4)There is regional heterogeneity in the impact of population aging and technological innovation on industrial structure adjustment.This study also draws some relevant enlightenments for effectively coping with population aging and promoting industrial structure adjustment,hoping to provide a reference for relevant departments to formulate industrial economic plans,so that my country can seize the economic benefits of population aging and rely on innovation to promote industrial structure adjustment. |
