Education key to unlocking gateway to future growth

Sheng Laiyun, deputy head of the National Bureau of Statistics, recently shared his views on the population contraction in China with the media. Although China's population started declining last year, the country still has a working-age population of nearly 900 million, and the average number of years of education of this group has reached 10.93, a historical high, according to Sheng.

Therefore, as he said, the quality of the working-age population has improved more quickly than the country's total population has decreased, which provides a good guarantee for the high-quality development of China's economy.

A decline in the total population is an inevitable result of economic development at a certain stage, and is an objective law of social development. A country usually relies on natural resources and cheap labor in the early stage of their economic rise. But after a country's per capita income reaches the middle-income stage, it is easy for it to lose the cost advantage in the manufacturing competition with low-wage economies, prompting it to divert to innovation-driven growth.

After that, the enhancement of the country's productivity should mainly depend on human intelligence and skills. So, while it is necessary to encourage more births, China should also strive to improve the quality of its population through education so as to raise its total factor productivity. The country should focus on promoting technological innovation, seek the high-end of the global industry and supply chains, and compete with developed economies in the field of high technology.

In this regard, China has actually done a good job. Over the past 11 years, 240 million people have received higher education in China.

The government can promote the development of some industries to better resolve the increasing social pressure due to negative population growth and other factors. In the future, with the progress of technology, intelligent technology can play an increasingly important role in coping with the aging population. In addition, intelligent technology can replace part of the labor force, alleviate the aging problem, and maintain the high efficiency of social operation.

So the government needs to stimulate more enterprises and human resources to flow to products and services suitable for the elderly by providing preferential policies, tax cuts, and consumer subsidies.

If these issues can be properly resolved, we don't have to worry too much about the current demographic situation in China.

BEIJING NEWS