China’s falling fertility rate will accelerate population aging, explains Park

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The world’s most populous country has a population problem. It’s shrinking. It’s a serious issue with numerous social and economic ramifications, but there is irony as well. After China’s population boom in the 1950s to 1970s Mao era— nearly doubling in a generation— demographers realized the situation was untenable. Mao’s successor Deng Xiaoping in 1979 then implemented the one-child policy. "China’s falling fertility rate will accelerate population aging, a process which is already well under way and creating a headwind for growth as the size of the labor force continues to shrink in absolute terms," Albert Park, head and chair professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, told Barron’s.

Read the news article on Barron's published on 6 March 2021.

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