Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
China will be old before it's rich
The old-before-rich problem
The cause is the one-child policy. Anyone, even people who are mathematically challenged, can figure out what it does to a population, and many of the people who remain will be old and sick. That could be said of a lot of countries, but it is much worse in China because of the speed with which it will happen.
What China needs now
So China needs two things: peace, so it can catch up, and a way to deal with the consequences of its own demographics, along with other economic challenges. Relatively speaking, China will do quite well over the next decade.
India's longer-term edge
Over the longer term, neither the United States nor China is particularly well placed to become the predominant great power of the future. India looks much better placed to achieve the kind of integrated development China has benefited from more recently, not least because it has a much younger population.
How did the one-child policy shrink China's workforce?
The policy began around 1980 and limited most urban couples to a single child. According to United Nations estimates, China's fertility rate fell from about six births per woman around 1970 to roughly two by the early 1990s. Fewer births then meant fewer working-age adults a generation later, with a growing group of retirees to support. China ended the one-child rule in 2015 by allowing two children, and in 2021 allowed three.
How did Japan age differently from China?
Japan became wealthy first. Its income per person was already among the highest in the world by the 1980s, decades before its population began to shrink around 2010. Its pension and health systems were funded by a rich economy as its population aged. China's pace of aging is faster, and it is starting that process at a much lower income level.
How much younger is India's population?
United Nations estimates from the early 2020s put India's median age in the late twenties and China's near forty. India's fertility rate fell later than China's and did so without a state limit on births. Its fertility rate reached about replacement level, roughly two births per woman, around 2020. In April 2023, UN estimates showed India passing China as the world's most populous country.
More from The Rest Is Politics: Leading
