China’s population has experienced two ‘baby booms’, one following the civil war and a second in the early 1960s after recovery from the Great Leap Famine. The echoes of these large cohorts, as they matured into child-bearing years, and variations in strictness in the population control policies, are reflected in China’s population pyramid. These population cohorts of different sizes can lead to large annual changes in the labor pool (representing 8-10 million people). Such dramatic variations in the size of labor populations by age complicates government efforts to develop sustainable programs to train young workers or provide pensions.Anothe important demographic challenge, with deep roots in China’s history, is the re-emergence of a gender imbalance, now abetted by enabling technologies (e.g. ultrasound and sex-selective abortions). The large gender imbalance of China’s population, with the sex ratio at birth starkly favoring boys over girls, implies China will have millions of ‘forced bachelors’ over the coming decades. Men and women will also experience aging in different ways.
The traditional reliance on male children for elderly support will no doubt undergo further erosion, as it already has with the large-scale migration of rural population under long-term low fertility and increased financial support from migrant daughters. The economic impact of reduction in working-age population can be partly offset by greater female labor force participation and less gender discrimination. As is true around the world, women in China have longer life expectancy than men and therefore can expect to spend a part of their retirement lives without a spouse. For men, the poorest strata will increasingly
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