China's Shrinking Population: How Will It Cope With Fewer Workers? | Insight | Full Episode

foreign by some estimates China no longer holds the crown as the world's most populous nation China's population has declined for the first time since 1960s in 2023 we have seen this decline in fertility and Rising mortality rate all this would affect maybe the competitiveness of the economy Innovation and just overall the energy of the Chinese population at the same time the pandemic and geopolitical shifts saw an exodus of foreign migrants I've seen a serious decrease in the amount of foreigners coming in during covid-19 there were lesser people in China and a lot of people also went back home what happens when China shrinks and is China staring at a demographic design is the first country in the world to enter into a long-term population decline before getting rich [Music] thank you [Music] at the end of 2022 the world's population reached 8 billion for the first time while there are more people on the planet than ever before there is a reversal in what was the world's most populous nation China home to 1.4 billion people had begun shrinking in January 2023 China's national Bureau of Statistics announced its population shrank by about 850 000 the year before the number of deaths in the year some 10.4 million outstripped the number of births about 9.5 million this is China's first population decline since the 1960s foreign [Music] obviously something that made people very nervous especially the government that means that the population will continue to get older with fewer children that were born every year and the working age population is also going to continue to decline many attribute China's population declined to the one child policy the initiative was implemented between 1980 to 2015 to curb a population growth by restricting births to one child per family however this was not modern China's first attempt at population control the biggest decline in China's fertility rate was before one child policy from 1950s on until 1970s where the pronato policy you know the family policy fertility policy is a more milder version which emphasizes late marriage longer spacing and a smaller family and so in China they call it one shiso the one seashell later longer fewer birth control campaign was a response to overpopulation in China during the Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1962 the Communist Party sought to reshape China into a communist agrarian society but instead of increasing production it led to mass starvation and famine Reports say between 15 and 55 million people died birth rates however remained High in the decade that followed as Chinese Leaders grappled with widespread poverty and having too many mouths to feed they encouraged people to have less children [Music] fertility has declined before one child policy to about 2.7 already and of course one child policy that started in 1979 accelerated this Decline and so fertility continued to decline below a replacement value and then until today's very low value when the one child policy was reversed in 2015 China's fertility rate stood at 1.67 risen in the years that followed Instead The High Cost of Living has been blamed for the stagnation of birth rates [Music] foreign and the Chinese leadership was worried in a speech in last year's Communist Party Congress Xi Jinping vowed to boost birth rates and respond to the Aging population China is the first country in the world to enter into a long-term population decline before getting rich population aging and decline race concerns about China's shrinking neighbor for us so this could have impacts on China's long-term economic growth China in the past 30 years had relied on its cheap labor and a rapid economic growth to support the general Improvement of living quality but now there's this genuine concern that the demographic dividend era has come into an end population decline could be disastrous for China one estimate says China lost more than 40 million workers in the last three years due to the pandemic and aging population that is more than the population of Canada to compound the problem China has at the same time become less attractive to foreign labor people like Jason Jackson the American teacher has been living and working in Shanghai for the past 12 years and has raised his family in the city I saw the growth back in 2010 2011 that China was experiencing and felt like it would be a good place to start I have a great relationship with my Chinese colleagues and I think it's because they see my love for their country and my interest in their language and Chinese tea and Chinese calligraphy and Chinese art and and the language [Music] Jason's moved to China coincided with China's push for pro-immigration policies in the previous two decades for example Shanghai made it easier to obtain permanent residency in the City by shortening the application process the historical attitude from the Chinese government was that they welcome Highly Educated or people with capital to move to China start a business or at some point they can create employment or adopt a technological transfer through their companies if they the economy wants to transform from you know labor-intensive economy to a more knowledge-based industrialized modern or technologically based economy they need people and they need talents however the pandemic and three years of draconian zero covet measures have changed Jason's plans to live and work in China after last Summer's punishing two-month lockdown of Shanghai China's most populous city of 25 million people Jason has had enough I think the three years of lockdown also was hard on a lot of foreigners I know in my current job I'm I would think of I think there's about 25 to maybe 35 percent that I know of that are leaving the school now and um I'm actually one of them I've decided uh to go back to America I just I I feel like what the China that I that I experienced in 2011 is not the China that I'm experiencing in in 2023. [Music] Jason isn't the only one ever since the outbreak of covet the number of foreign talent in China has dropped dramatically although official numbers are not available surveys showed that between a third and half of foreigners were looking to leave when I was leaving Shanghai I went to the injury exit Visa Department in Shanghai and the amount of foreigners that were there once the covert restrictions left it blew my mind there were hundreds of people waiting outside of the injury exit Visa office wanting to leave China I'd never seen anything like this before last year the Shanghai lockdown shook the many foreigners so many of them left Shanghai including those who had lived and worked in Shanghai for many years I think damages inflict inflicted are difficult to undo so it takes time and the Air Force yeah to attract foreigners back especially if we consider the worsening United States U.S and China relationship you know so the external environment is is changing so for those who wanted to move to China they need to think twice about their decision people see China as a less appealing place to park their money for international investors they also worry about maybe potentially more sanctions from the U.S and maybe it's not necessarily just in a high-tech sector it could be spreaded into other sectors as well there's also a anti-china sentiment Rising among most of the Western countries it doesn't work to China's favor with all this Weighing on his mind Jason has decided to pack his bags and leave at the end of the year I do feel like tensions are rising and I do feel um things aren't the same as they used to be and I and I sometimes don't feel as welcomed here as I did before I feel uh that would be best for us to to go back and so I've already accepted a position in Nevada and Las Vegas as a teacher and I'm already planning to to leave [Music] but while some are leaving China there are others who are Keen to come can China reverse the immigration Trend and plug the worrying Gap in the shrinking Workforce [Music] [Music] it's been a long day for 29 year old umitoha and 33 year old Romana Xiao since the morning they had been sorting and packing cargo boxes for shipping they're still at work after a 12-hour shift rushing to meet the deadline for the next day [Music] Umi and Roman are from Tanzania and they run a cargo and Trading Company in Xiao Bay in the central USU District of Guangzhou xiaote is also known as little Africa this area caters to African residents with restaurants mini Marts and convenient shops foreign there are a lot of Industries and manufacturers here in China so I came here because of business and China is very good at business African migration to China has picked up since the closer economic ties between China and the continent [Music] Guangzhou is a popular city with the African Community and is nicknamed The Chocolate City because of its high concentration of Africans the African community based in Guangzhou they are preferring Guangzhou specifically because we enjoy is also having a port so if they are even buying their goods it's easy to ship them to go to African countries but also uh Guangzhou City is so welcoming when you people are so friendly as compared to other cities I've been to China is now Africa's largest trading partner 43 African nations are included in China's ambitious belt and Road initiative or Bri the Bri is a global infrastructure development strategy initiated by China in 2013 aimed at improving trade relations among partner countries Chinese investment in the African continent Grew From 75 million dollars in 2003 to 2.7 billion dollars in 2019. their growing relations are also visible in migration patterns Guangzhou is said to be home to about half a million Africans while an estimated one to two million Chinese are in Africa but unlike other countries that are facing population decline China has not placed much emphasis on migration as a solution before covet China had about three-quarter of a million foreign residents living here in contrast Japan had about 2.5 million foreign residents and even South Korea had 1.5 million so we usually consider Japan and Korea to be more socially conservative especially Japan to be more or less a culturally enclosed place but even they have more of the foreign presence than China the priority for China's developmental strategy really hasn't been on immigration because the priority has been in burning down the poverty and solving the problem of too many mouths to feet we know that there have a millions of lower or semi-skilled labors from Africa and that is to fill the need for lower and semi-skilled labor but there's not a huge effort in really advertising that we want a lot of immigrants in yet [Music] in the face of declining population there have been calls for the Chinese leadership to rethink migration especially for semi-skilled labor among young Chinese there is a growing disdain for blue collared work coupled with declining birth rates this means that fewer young people to replace retiring Factory workers as a result one study estimates that more than half of Chinese companies face shortage of blue-collet workers in 2021 as older workers retired without replacement for example on construction sites uh if a worker is above 35 years old then it is increasingly difficult for them to secure any position in the construction industry and traditionally this industry has been the one that has absorbed most of the migration workers so with the structural change in China's economy how to accommodate migration worker is becoming a more more of a challenge for the local governments Sunday nights are the highlight of the week for Fabian Institute the 31 year old Nigerian organizes and plays soccer with fellow Africans in foreshan Guangdong Province where he lives [Music] Fabian has been living and working in China for nine years he first came to China as a student and now he owns a clothing and Trading Company according to him Factory workers have become expensive as young Chinese shunned labor-intensive Industries and I tell you the truth factories people work in the factory makes more salary than people walk in the office I knew a lady who makes like 15 000 or 20 000 a month there's a lot of like youth now they don't cares about doing some of the jobs in China now some of them thinks that the salary is too low China's Rising labor costs weigh on foreign investors already spooked country's covet policies researched by the reassuring Institute reported that China can no longer be considered a low-cost country as its labor rates have significantly increased for example labor costs in China are twice that of neighboring Vietnam [Music] Fabian for One Believes African migrants can alleviate cost pressures African workers levels are cheap you know if you are paying this person like six thousand you can pay them like four thousand or three thousand they're okay with it and the money they are making is okay for them they're happy with it because when they send it back home they say they're making and they'll be paying their taxes as well so they are also contributed to the country and also helping themselves as well [Music] he has personally lobbied the local authorities to tap on this cheap and available labor pool by allowing African students in China to also work part-time when I was in Cheyenne we tried to pray the government immigration they should provide like little job for the students maybe after after classes you go to you go to your job like to do your part-time all the foreigners are they are they are more talented we learn from each other you know so they I believe that governments should look into this but migration brings with it social friction it's in a largely homogenous country like China in 2017 one politician proposed ousting the Africans in Guangzhou claiming among other things that they were vectors for AIDS then there was an uptick of xenophobic posts on social media during the pandemic targeted at the African Community something that Umi and Roman are familiar with I didn't experience it personally but I yeah there were some news and some of the of the clips were even uh they weren't very I think on dojin so there was a time when they go to the supermarket to line up for food the line is really long but sometimes because maybe some people are black they are treated differently someone is really avoiding you because you're just black some of uh our Chinese friends were were really good but some of them you know ignorance is everywhere in the world but yeah it was there on the street although the Chinese government has emphasized its Zero Tolerance policy towards racism it can be difficult to Stamp Out xenophobia if the migrants are seen as competing with the locals for limited opportunities China now is still concerned about the unemployment issue every year the new labor market entrance is over 15 million so this means that China will not consider you know immigration yeah as an option to address is a termination issues because China is not an immigrant Nation so immigration is not really a policy option for both the government and the physical Society for now so um yeah I think there's will be strong resistance even if this is considered as a policy option they want to attract more talents in Industries like semiconductor new Energy new materials but these are becoming more sensitive fields for foreigners to work in China and for other areas China his government may not necessarily want more foreign presence because clearly there's a competition in the talent pool [Music] for Fabian he holds on to hope that China will become more migrant friendly as it is faced with a harsh reality of an aging population so I hope China if China if Chinese government can also look into it is going to be amazing not going to be amazing as we also attract more people for now migration will likely remain a limited means of addressing China's population Rose meanwhile could the country look inward for Solutions [Music] at the age of 24 Yen Ting Wu did what many young graduates like him do the shantong native packed his bags and headed for a tier one city a categorization for the most developed cities in China in Yen's case he headed for the capital Beijing together with a classmate uh foreign [Music] eventually landed a role as a junior executive in the media production firm foreign urbanization and internal migration have been engines of growth moving its young population from rural regions to Dynamic developing cities I'd say that the initial several decades of Economic Development the huge rapid economic growth really rely on the rural migrants that are coming in to do all kinds of different labors construction factories everything and today the the number statistics shows that it's about 300 million of migrants that are coming from rural to the cities now many young Chinese who make the move tend to be more educated than their predecessors [Music] as Chinese leadership emphasize education the enrollment rate in higher education hit 57.8 percent in 2021 nearly double the figure from a decade earlier if we look at the quality of the workforce most of them are now college educated so what matters for China now is not just the quantity of Workforce yeah but also the quality of all course so replacing the next educated retiring cohorts with the more educated younger Generations will help China to sustain economic growth but with the Aging population China can no longer count on labor from rural regions to grow the urbanization rate has been on the decline even before the pandemic and one policy based on an ancient Chinese practice further complicates internal migration the huko system Loosely translated as household individual it is a registration document tied to a person's residence migrant workers with out-of-state registrations have limited access to services like healthcare education and job protections social services are largely funded by local governments so local companies local officials do not have strong incentives to provide you know service equal services to migrant workers to treat them equally as you know local hookah holders and also there's resistance from local residents to extend extend Urban privileges to micro workers so that's why yeah so this is a has been the issue for a long time to treat migrant workers equally as China's population ages there have been colds in recent years to reform the huko system this will allow more free movement of Labor while smaller cities those with less than 3 million people have abolished hookah requirements change in tier one cities like Beijing and Shanghai have been slow system if it's abolished it will actually increase the productivity and the economic efficiency in China because people are allowed to move freely and they have more incentive and more incentive to work harder to get what they want uh so that's something that I think a very serious problem that unfortunately and the recent meetings have not been talked about at all but internal migration comes with its own challenges as more people flock to major cities the rising costs of Housing and job competition have left the younger generation jaded some have checked out of the Rat Race a social phenomenon known as tamping to lie flat and bylan let it rot The Dumping attitude is something that people feel what's the point of working so hard if oh I can do is to living paycheck by paycheck uh never will I be able to afford housing since housing costs is so high when economic situation is not good and unemployment rate is so high also the work hours is very long in China that bring disillusions among young people where they think the return of these investment they put in in the higher education or education is not there and so there they feel discouraged about that foreign outfit in Shanghai his company helps Brands to do live broadcasts and social media engagement his is a business that could benefit from a young Workforce um [Music] but Jack has seen a shift in attitudes among his new hires one is [Music] foreign [Music] an English teacher in an international school he too has also encountered this change in his students the work ethic I've seen changed with Chinese students maybe over the last three two to three years I've seen this decline in desire to to work hard they don't want to be the top they don't want to be the best in their class they and um you know I'm teaching middle school kids and a lot of them have become very apathetic they just there's this sense of it doesn't matter you know there there's this there's no concern for for their education and the apathy could grow as China's population ages young workers find themselves trapped in the sandwich class with the burden of caring for the elderly falling on them Yen for one has returned to his hometown to look after his parents um foreign [Music] the Chinese leadership is paying attention to the aspirations of the young addressing it at the two sessions meeting they did come out to say after this meeting to say that the policy of economy first will no longer be as prominent and that they're paying more attention to social well-being of the people in general I think that's a very good direction to go you need to continue to instill faith and the hope that life is going to continue to get better but apart from encouraging its youth China also wants to tap on the resources of its old could raising the retirement age help tackle China's demographic woes [Music] at the annual meetings of China's top legislature known as the Liang Hui or two sessions the party second in command Li Chao announced that the government is considering raising China's retirement age the economic reality is that 10 years down the road there might be a serious shortage of Labor in many Industries in China then by then there has to be a real push for raising the retirement age it's not optional so raising retirement age is international practice so yeah China suno or later yeah we'll take this this option yeah so the given the sense sense of urgency I think China yeah will roll out the policy yeah in the next a few years [Music] what age to raise this to is still in discussion but currently China's official retirement age is 60 years old for men 55 for white collared women and 50 for blue-collet women it is among the lowest in the world and has not been revised in 40 years raising the retirement age will give the working population an immediate boost China's Baby Boomers was born between 1962 and 1976 about 300 million to 400 million people or born in that period and most of those people would retire around 2020. by raising their retirement age it could delay the pension payment for the current Baby Boomers and that can work to China's favor because about 300 million workers simultaneously retiring is quite scary foreign the move has received a mixed reception from the populace um Japanese foreign [Music] I think the difficulty is that some surveys did show that there's some opposition especially among the population who are going to be retiring you know they're expecting to get their pensions right away and now you're saying that we're going to postpone that for you know five years 10 years that isn't something very popular as a policy goes for this group of people [Music] for these reasons raising the retirement age can be politically damaging [Music] in January union strikes broker in France opposing president Emmanuel mafron's move to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. by March the demonstrations had turned violent and more than one million protesters took to the streets as trash collectors went on strike the ones glittering boulevards of downtown Paris turned into dystopia as uncollected garbage piled Higher by the day there were wide public transport disruptions thousands of flights were canceled um Mr Wong retired six years ago at the official retirement age of 60. he's an award-winning chef and his career spanned more than 40 years when it came time to hang out the chef's hat Mr Wong had no regrets away despite his own circumstances Wong sees value in plans to raise the retirement age foreign foreign was the chief physician and a specialist in pathology when her retirement age came up at 55 she felt she still had a lot more to contribute is foreign [Music] just like retired Chef Mr Wong Dr law supports raising the retirement age in China [Music] um the retirement age are cannot be changed all of a sudden five years later or ten years later the the reform of retirement age is usually a gradual increase one year later the other year you know or even half a year later and gradually that it increases and allow for some flexibility for people to decide not completely mandatory and apart from topping on older workers China still has another card to play turning to robotic ones in coastal China there was this big initiative to replace a lot of the manufacturing workers with industrial robots according to the official estimate from 2022 China's industrial robots per worker is actually higher than that in the U.S so this is quite encouraging in terms of the manufacturing productivity I think the government is keenly aware that this is an area that they need to invest and they can invest you know there are a lot of mathematicians and engineers in China and Computing science these uh investment in the last four or five decades is going to the the country is going to reap the benefit of this investment China has been markedly successful in this regard a 2022 report by the International Federation of Robotics found that China achieved almost 250 000 industrial robot installations in 2021 accounting for half of worldwide robot installations that year AI adoption rates are also High Jack who for one is Keen to integrate AI into his media business to be clear China's population currently at 1.4 billion is nowhere near collapse but taking the example from other aging societies like Japan and South Korea the demographic decline could be inevitable addressing these challenges in the country the size of China will prove a Monumental task we need to accept the reality that aging Society is irreversible it doesn't match the water reforms China can adopt it will become a lot older 10 years from now the Chinese leaders are more worried about Social Challenges and the economic challenges for example funding and also providing elderly care services are more challenging for our China right now postponing of retirement age is key and keeping everyone healthy is key and integrating everyone into societies that they have a happier and life so that they still can hold this China dream [Music] [Music] thank you

Channel: CNA Insider

Views: 320,224

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Id: P5vmiu8A-co

Length: 46min 51sec (2811 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 18 2023