Source: Qin Shuo friends circle wechat ID: qspyq2015
·Turkonev | text
Speaking of population, the Chinese people are most concerned about two things: first, when will India’s total population surpass that of China, and how long will our title of “the world’s most populous country” last? Second, when will China’s population experience negative growth?
Now, there are clear answers to both questions.
According to the world population outlook 2022 released by the United Nations in July, India’s population will surpass that of China in 2023. What is more disturbing than this is that the report shows that on July 1, China’s total population was 1425.887 million, a decrease of 38000 from 1425.925 million at the beginning of the year. In other words, China’s total population has entered negative growth.
Although this data has not yet been officially confirmed, the National Health Commission publicly acknowledged for the first time in the 15th issue of Qiushi magazine published on August 1 that (the national population) will enter a negative growth stage during the “14th five year plan”. So even if it is not this year, China’s negative population growth has entered the countdown.
In 2019, the green paper on population and Labor issued by the Institute of population and labor economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences also said that the negative population growth will be around 2027-2030.
The article of the National Health Commission was advanced to 2025. However, according to the sharp drop in population growth in the past few years – the population increased by 4.67 million in 2019, fell to 2.04 million in 2020, and only 480000 in 2021, negative growth this year may not be impossible, or even a high probability event.
With the official arrival of the era of negative population growth, what challenges will Chinese society face? Are there some opportunities behind the challenges?
???????????????????????????????????????????????
Look around us. Japan, the earliest country, has had a negative population growth for 11 consecutive years since 2011. Although the first negative population growth occurred in South Korea in 2021, as early as 2018, it has become the first country in the world with a total fertility rate, that is, the average number of children per couple is less than 1.0. At present, it has dropped to 0.81. In addition, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan also have negative population growth around 2020.
If we expand our vision to the world, from 1950 to 2021, although the world population increased from 2.5 billion to 7.9 billion, the total fertility rate decreased from 4.86 to 2.32, which is close to the fertility replacement level of 2.1. Perhaps in our lifetime, we will see the day when the world’s population reaches an inflection point and negative growth occurs.
Compared with other countries, China’s population problem presents two characteristics:
First, the annual population growth rate is too fast.
Although the past decade can be called the decade of major adjustment of China’s population policy, which has experienced several rounds of favorable policies such as liberalizing the single second child (2013), comprehensive second child (2016) and encouraging third child (2021), the annual population growth has dropped from 10.06 million in 2012 to 480000 in 2021.
In contrast, even the rate of decline in Japan’s population growth can be described as gentle and stable. It took 40 years for Japan to grow from more than 1 million to less than 500000 per year; It took another 30 years from 500000 to negative growth. Among them, the number of births in Japan decreased by 50% from 1974 to 2015. The number of births in China in 2021 will be 40% less than that in 2016, when the two-child policy was fully implemented five years ago.
At present, China’s total fertility rate has dropped to 1.15, which is not only far below the replacement line of 2.1 and the warning line of 1.5, but also much lower than that of Japan (1.3), which is seriously aging with fewer children, and only higher than that of South Korea and Singapore (1.1).
Such a shorter and more violent population fluctuation has brought about the second problem of China’s population: it is a little early to enter the stage of negative population growth.
I checked that when Japan’s population showed negative growth in 2011, the per capita GDP was close to US $50000. South Korea is a little less, but it also has 35000 US dollars. China has just reached the $10000 mark, and it belongs to “getting old before getting rich”.
????????????????????????????????????????????????????“??”?????????????????GDP??????????????
In fact, the economy is behind the population. As a complex and sophisticated ecosystem, the change of any link or factor will cause the shock of the whole system. In the past three decades, China’s economy has been growing at a high speed, and an important factor is the “demographic dividend”.
Population determines both the production side and the consumption side. The decrease of population means the decrease of output and the decrease of demand. The two affect each other and form a downward spiral. This is also why, in countries with negative population growth, the general economic development speed is slow, the employment of the people is difficult, and the social unrest is serious.
What is more, because of the negative population growth, not all age groups are experiencing negative growth at the same time. The main reason is that the number of young people is decreasing. And young people are the main labor force of society. The reduction of its number will inevitably lead to the shortage of social labor force, and many jobs may not be done. In the future, if you want to find a person to repair water and electricity and do cleaning, the price will definitely be more expensive.
At the same time, young people are also the main creators of social wealth. The decrease of young people means the decrease of new social wealth. In addition, as mentioned above, China belongs to the type of “getting old before getting rich”. The original social wealth accumulation is insufficient, and it is impossible to maintain high social welfare by relying on old capital, as in the old developed countries in Europe and America. Therefore, it can be predicted that with the arrival of the era of negative population growth, the economic interests of the vast majority of people will be affected in the future, especially the elderly who live on pensions.
In fact, this has already happened. For example, in the three provinces of Northeast China, last year alone, the pension gap exceeded 130 billion yuan. If it were not for the central government’s transfer and allocation, it would be a problem whether many local elderly people could get their pensions on time and in full. However, the central government’s money is not from the strong wind, but from the balance of other provinces. But what if all the provinces don’t have enough pensions?
At present, our national pension system adopts the “pay as you go” mode, that is, the social security contributions paid by young people are used to pay the old people’s pension. There are fewer young people working. If we want to continue to balance the income and expenditure of the pension, we can only extend the working life and postpone the retirement time, so that more people will pay the pension and the payment time will be longer, while fewer people will receive the pension and the payment time will be shorter.
You see, in Japan next door, the retirement age has been extended to 70 years old. Recently, it is even more advocating a “no retirement society”. That is, as long as you still have the breath to move bricks and tiles, you will ask whether you are cruel or not? How old will China’s retirement age be postponed in the future? The government has not announced it, and it is not easy for us to speculate. However, the post-80s and post-90s generation will definitely not enjoy the good days when women 50 and men 60 retire.
At this time, do you still think it is good to have fewer people?
Recently, with the approval of the State Council, the National Health Commission, the national development and Reform Commission and other 17 departments issued the guiding opinions on further improving and implementing the positive fertility support measures, calling for accelerating the establishment of a positive fertility support policy system to provide strong support for promoting the realization of an appropriate fertility level and promoting the long-term balanced development of the population.
On August 12, Zhejiang issued the opinions on the implementation of the birth policy to promote the long-term balanced development of the population, which mentioned that “by 2025, the cost of childbirth, upbringing and education will be significantly reduced”, “the proportion of three children in the birth population will be increased, and the total fertility rate and natural growth rate will rise steadily”.
Zhejiang is not the first province to do so. Since the beginning of this year alone, more than ten provinces, including Beijing, Guangdong and Hunan, have issued policy documents to encourage childbirth. With “more children and more children” becoming the main theme of the population policy in the new era, many benefits that the older generation has never enjoyed are falling on the young one by one. For example, children have money to take.
Many people of our parents’ generation want to live but dare not. One important reason is that they are afraid of being fined too much. But now, not only are they not fined, they are also given money. How much is it?
For example, Panzhihua, Sichuan Province, which was the first to launch the “child care subsidy”, families with two or three children can receive a subsidy of 500 yuan per month until their children reach the age of three. While Linze, Gansu Province, although its economy is not very developed, it is unambiguous in encouraging childbirth. You know, Panzhihua has 500 children a month. I have three children and 10000 children a year. As a result, the news has not yet been searched. Wenzhou Longwan, which is rich and powerful, has raised the standard to 1000 a month, which is 12000 a year.
Maybe someone wants to say, how can this money be enough? Do you know how expensive and troublesome it is to raise a baby now? When I was born, I would like someone to take me and invite my aunt; When you’re old enough to go to school, you should buy a school district house; After going to school, you have to sign up for this class and that class… Don’t worry, the policy makers have thought of this, and even have thought of how to live for you.
Aren’t many people unable to have children because of their busy work and poor health? Beijing has included 16 assisted reproductive technology projects in the category a reimbursement scope of medical insurance, which is much more reliable than the small advertisement on the telephone pole for treating infertility.
As for when I was born, I didn’t have time to take it with me, and I didn’t have to worry. Wuhan and other places are already exploring public trust. At this year’s national two sessions, some members of the Chinese people’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) even suggested to carry out the integrated reform of child care throughout the country. That is to say, in the future, communities, kindergartens and even larger enterprises will participate in helping to bring children together. Before going to work every day, parents only need to put their children in the infant care center set up by the community and have special personnel to take care of them.
At school age, the school district housing that plagues our generation is long gone. It doesn’t even matter if we don’t buy a house, because we have the same rights to rent and sell the house. No matter whether you buy or rent the house, your children can go to school nearby. As for spending a lot of money to continue to teach children in auxiliary institutions after school? I advise you to save your mind. You have seen the results of the management and rectification of the extra-curricular classes in the past two years. Even if you want to go, the institutions dare not accept them.
To be fair, China is learning from Japan, South Korea and other countries’ measures to encourage childbirth, and carefully copying its homework. But experience tells us that once the total fertility rate falls below the warning line, it is very difficult to recover. Affected by this, many industries are facing a major reshuffle. However, in some areas, opportunities seem to be emerging.
????????“???????????????”???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
The extra-curricular training in Japan is called “supplementary education” locally, which mainly includes two forms of learning private schools and correspondence courses. Among them, Benesse, a listed company, monopolized nearly 90% of the market share of correspondence courses. Since 2010 (almost synchronized with the negative growth of Japanese population), the growth of domestic education income of Benesse has basically stagnated. In terms of enrollment, from 2004 to 2013, only primary school correspondence courses showed an upward trend, while preschool, junior high school and high school correspondence courses all declined; After 2013, the number of students enrolled in the four stages of courses accelerated to decline.
This situation will certainly appear in the Chinese market in the future. Therefore, for domestic education and training enterprises, transformation is inevitable, and it is better to turn earlier than later.
Unlike the education and training market, although some fields are also impacted by the population reduction, they are at risk, such as mother and baby. On the one hand, the year-on-year reduction of the newborn population will inevitably lead to the contraction of the maternal and infant consumption market; On the other hand, the rise in per capita childcare expenditure is creating more market segments. For example, milk sucking machines, auxiliary food machines and other new mother and baby household appliances have come out. Even the drying of milk bottles now have special sterilization and drying racks. Even within the same category, the differentiation between low-end and high-end is emerging.
Take milk powder as an example. From 2016 to 2018, the proportion of sales of nationwide popular milk powder gradually declined, while the proportion of high-end and ultra high-end milk powder increased. It is expected that by 2025, the sales of super high-end milk powder will account for more than 70%. It can be seen that the demand iteration of diversified and high-end consumers is partially offsetting the impact of the decline of newborn babies, and also providing brand enterprises with new room for manoeuvre.
A similar situation has occurred in the insurance industry. The decline of population means that the total number of customers is decreasing, but at the same time, with the deepening of aging, the market potential of health insurance and commercial endowment insurance is further expanding. In fact, not only the pension insurance, but also the entire pension industry will be the most promising “sunrise industry” in the future.
According to the data, the market scale of China’s pension industry in 2019 was 6 trillion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 30.2%; In 2020, it rose to 7.7 trillion yuan, an increase of 28.1% year on year. It is estimated that by 2030, the national pension industry market will reach 13 trillion yuan.
With the expansion of the market scale, the number of relevant enterprises also showed a blowout growth. According to the Research Report on the market prospect and investment of China’s elderly care industry in 2021, the number of elderly care related enterprises has increased year by year in the past 10 years. From 2010 to 2013, the average annual registration was 4035, and in 2019, it increased to 38000, an increase of 151% over 10 years ago. “Silver economy” is becoming a new opportunity for all parties to explore.
However, it should be reminded that a prerequisite for the existence of the “silver economy” is that silver haired people have savings when they are young and the national welfare is sustainable, so that they can consume when they are old. Just like the Showa generation in Japan, when they were young, they caught up with the economic boom. They had more savings. After retirement, they could receive a generous pension, and pension consumption was naturally vigorous. However, in the Heicheng era, young people have suffered “lost 30 years”, and their pensions have shrunk in disguise after they grow old, so that many people have to gnaw at their old age, or they are still working in their 70s and 80s. There is no “silver economy” for such old people.
Therefore, when we are discussing the “silver economy”, we are still talking about young people. How to continue to let young people have jobs and earn money in an era of negative population growth is the key to the problem.