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October 21, 2015

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China facing labor shortage due to one-child policy

China might face a labor shortfall as early as 2021 due to a rapidly aging population as the results of the one-child policy, started in the 1970s, begin to bite, an expert said yesterday.

The country’s labor population will show a downward trend as workers born during the baby boom in the 1960s and 1970s begin to retire in 2021, Yao Meixiong, deputy head of the Center for Population Census of Fujian Provincial Bureau of Statistics, was quoted as saying by yicai.com.

At the end of last year, 15.5 percent of China’s population, or 212 million people, were aged over 60, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

“Labor resources between the ages of 20 and 34 will plunge year by year from 2021. The drop could amount to 11 million a year from 2022 to 2025. By 2030, the young labor force will be just 221 million, 104 million fewer than in 2010,” Yao said.

The number of Chinese aged under 14 currently accounts for 16.5 percent of the national total, compared with a global average of 27 percent.

The population of workers aged between 16 and 59 fell by 3.7 million year on year in 2014, official data showed.

The gender imbalance could also cause problems, Yao said.

“In 2010, among people under 19, there were 22.1 million more males than females,” he said.

“From 2020, 10 percent of young men will find it hard to find a wife,” he said.

China partially lifted its one-child policy during a pilot program in Zhejiang Province last year, allowing couples to have a second child if either parent is an only child. The policy was rolled out across the country this year.

However, the move is not enough to fill the labor shortfall as couples qualified to bear a second child are not always willing to do so, Yao said.




 

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