人口老龄化对经济增长阶段的异质性影响及其作用机制——基于粤港澳大湾区的分析

The Heterogeneous Effect of Population Aging on Economic Growth and Its Mechanism:A Case Study of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

人口老龄化对经济增长的影响是各国政府和学界关注的重要课题。我国继党的十九届五中全会将积极应对人口老龄化上升为国家战略,近期召开的党的二十大更明确提出要积极发展养老事业和养老产业,优化孤寡老人服务,推动实现全体老年人享有基本养老服务。已有文献普遍关注人口老龄化的经济后果,但却忽略了人口老龄化发展的阶段性特征及其对经济增长的影响。粤港澳大湾区基本包含了人口老龄化发展的各个阶段,以其为研究对象分析人口老龄化对经济增长的影响具有重要的理论和现实意义。研究结果表明:人口老龄化发展的不同阶段对经济增长的影响呈U型关系,即:在跨入中度老龄化社会前,人口老龄化对经济增长具有抑制作用,且主要是通过劳动供给和资本替代劳动两条路径影响经济增长;进入中度老龄化社会尤其是中度老龄化社会晚期和重度老龄化社会,人口老龄化对经济增长逐渐转为正向作用。这一作用机制的产生,源自资本替代劳动的效应带来了产业结构的转型升级,人口老龄化促使技术进步的效应缓解或抵消了人口老龄化带来的不利影响。中国人口老龄化程度不断加深是必然趋势,政府应及早采取应对措施,加快产业结构转型升级,妥善应对人口老龄化给国民经济增长带来的冲击。

The impact of population aging on economic growth is an important topic concerned by governments and academia.China has actively responded to the aging of the population as a national strategy since the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19 th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China;in the“Report to the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China”,it is clearly stated that we should actively develop the elderly care programs and services,optimize the elderly services,and promote the realization of basic elderly care services.The economic consequences of population aging are widely concerned in the existing literature,but the previous studies have generally ignored the characteristics of population aging development and its impact on economic growth.Taking Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area basically reflecting all stages of population aging development as a case,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to analyze the impact of population aging on economic growth.The results show that the impact of different stages of population aging on economic growth is featured with a U-shaped nonlinear relationship,and before entering a moderately aging society,population aging has a inhibitory effect on economic growth mainly through labor supply and capital substitution of labor;the effect of population aging on economic growth is gradually turning positive stepping into a moderately aging society,especially in the late stages of a moderately aging society and a heavily aging society.The underlying mechanism stems from the transformation and upgrading of the industrial structure brought about by the effect of capital substitution for labor,and the adverse effect of population aging mitigated or offset by the effect of technological progress driven by population aging.China’s population aging is an inevitable trend,and the government should take early countermeasures to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of the industrial structure to properly cope with the impact of population aging on national economic growth.