NYT WORLD: Why China’s Shrinking Population Is a Problem for Everyone
By Nicole Hong
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: April 19, 2023 at 03:00AM
The change puts China on the same course of both aging and shrinking as many of its neighbors in Asia, but its path will have outsize effects not just on the regional economy, but on the world at large as well.
Here’s why economists and others are alarmed by the developments.
China’s shrinking work force could hobble the global economy.
For years, China’s massive working-age population powered the global economic engine, supplying the factory workers whose cheap labor produced goods that were exported around the world.
In the long run, a shortage of factory workers in China — driven by a better-educated work force and a shrinking population of young people — could raise costs for consumers outside China, potentially exacerbating inflation in countries like the United States that rely heavily on imported Chinese products. Facing rising labor costs in China, many companies have already begun shifting their manufacturing operations to lower-paying countries like Vietnam and Mexico.
By Nicole Hong
Section: World
Source: New York Times
Published Date: April 19, 2023 at 03:00AM
China struggled for years to curtail its rapid population growth. Now that its population is declining, economists and others fear serious implications for China and countries around the world.
Despite the cancellation years ago of China’s harsh, Mao-era restriction on families to a single child, and even after more recent incentives urging families to have more children, China’s population is steadily shrinking — a momentous shift that will soon leave India as the world’s most populous nation and have broad rippling effects both domestically and globally.The change puts China on the same course of both aging and shrinking as many of its neighbors in Asia, but its path will have outsize effects not just on the regional economy, but on the world at large as well.
Here’s why economists and others are alarmed by the developments.
China’s shrinking work force could hobble the global economy.
For years, China’s massive working-age population powered the global economic engine, supplying the factory workers whose cheap labor produced goods that were exported around the world.
In the long run, a shortage of factory workers in China — driven by a better-educated work force and a shrinking population of young people — could raise costs for consumers outside China, potentially exacerbating inflation in countries like the United States that rely heavily on imported Chinese products. Facing rising labor costs in China, many companies have already begun shifting their manufacturing operations to lower-paying countries like Vietnam and Mexico.
Read More at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/world/asia/china-population-india.html
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