Insight China: China’s demographic time bomb Go back »
2013-07-03 | Beijing
China’s population, the senior population over 60 years old in particular, is expected to grow rapidly in the next 50 years. Just within two decades, more than almost one-quarter of China's population will be aged over 60. This tremendous demographic shift will have important implications on the country’s potential economic growth, putting tremendous pressure of China’s public finances due to increasingly leverage of the pension and healthcare system expenditures.
European Union Chamber of Commerce invited nationally renowned experts on demography and economics to speak to the audiences about what impact the population ageing in China might bring on the country’s public finances, labour force, as well as people’s saving and consumption behaviour in Beijing on 27th June, 2013.
The experts invited shared their perspective on the following topics:
1. Will China get old before it gets rich?
2. What can be done to increase China’s labour force?
3. When will China’s middle-class reach 50 percent of the total population? (Middle class is defined as those household whose income is 30,000+ RMB per year.) The first city to achieve the middle class income to average 30,000 RMB per year was Dongguan, south China’s Guangdong province. Beijing only achieved this goal in 2012.
4. Can the development trend of labour forces in mega-cities represent the development in local places?
Each guest speaker represents a variety of background and perspective, and each of them has provided mental stimulus for thinking to all the audiences.
