China faces population crisis

BEIJING — It is tempting, looking at the locomotive that is the Chinese economy, to project its astounding rate of growth well into the future. China doubled its exports over the past five years, a faster pace of growth than the United States, Germany, Japan or Britain ever experienced in their economic boom times. By the time today's college graduating class reaches retirement age, China may be the world's largest economy.

This is a consensus view, but some scholars are focusing on another statistic. Barring a radical shift in social policy, China is on course to age faster than any major country in history, as its median age soars from about 32 today to at least 44 in 2040.

China will mature more in the next generation than Europe has over the past century, according to data compiled by the United Nations. It will have to grapple with the same age-related fiscal, social and productivity challenges of countries with several times its per capita income.

Put another way, China will get old before it gets rich.

"When people say things like we'll be richer than Japan or the United States, I never believe a single word," said Li Dongli, a demographer and sociologist at the China Population Development Research Center in Beijing. "The burden of our population is too large."

Demography may be no surer predictor of destiny than trade data. But of the two momentous changes championed by Deng Xiaoping a quarter-century ago, coercive population controls and experiments with market economics, the jury is still out on which will do more to shape China's long-term potential.

At least in terms of its original mission, limiting the runaway growth of China's population through the one-child policy instituted by the government in 1979 has been a success. Without it, China today would have a population of 1.6 billion instead of 1.3 billion.

But rising longevity and falling fertility have created a new demographic time bomb. China's baby boomers are producing children at well below the rate needed to maintain the country's population, somewhere from 1.3 children to 1.8 children on average per mother. The so-called replacement rate, or the birthrate needed to keep the population steady, is on average 2.1 children per mother.