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With its working age population declining as the elderly population increases, China scrapped its one-child policy in 2015, allowing all couples to have a second child [Xinhua]
China’s working age population, those aged 16 to 59, has been on the decline since 2012, and it is expected to reach 830 million in 2030, Li Zhong, spokesperson of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, told a press conference.
The figure will see a “sharp decline” after 2030, shrinking 7.6 million each year on average, Li said, without further elaboration.
China’s working age population dropped by 4.87 million to 910.96 million in 2015, up from the previous year’s drop of 3.71 million, according to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics.
With its working age population declining as the elderly population increases, China scrapped its one-child policy in 2015, allowing all couples to have a second child.
China faces the risk of ending up with an outsized elderly population before it becomes a developed economy.
The average Chinese worker puts in somewhere between 2,000 and 2,200 hours each year, Wang Qi, a researcher at Beijing Normal University, told the Wall Street Journal in 2014.
On Friday, at a round-table discussion in Beijing on economic growth, trade and finance with heads of institutions including the International Labour Organisation, ILO Chief Guy Ryder said “immediate action is needed to boost demand, spur growth & move workers into higher productivity jobs”.
TBP and Agencies
