人口规模、人口老龄化与经济增长

Population Size,Population Aging and Economic Growth

中国人口规模已经进入负增长阶段,人口老龄化程度逐渐加深,对经济增长产生了深远影响。本文使用1991-2020年省级数据,利用面板门槛效应模型研究人口规模、人口老龄化与经济增长数量和经济增长质量之间的关系。研究发现:在考虑实际经济运行的条件下,以人口老龄化作为门槛变量,人口规模对经济增长效率的影响为负,且人口规模扩大或缩小对经济增长质量的影响强于对经济增长数量的影响,而人口规模对经济增长数量的影响为正;在人口规模变动的情况下,人口老龄化与经济增长数量和经济增长质量均呈“U”型的关系。在生育政策调整的情况下,还需要依靠技术创新、产业结构升级、人力资本投资、资本集聚、开放对外市场等途径实现经济高质量发展。扩大人口规模有助于经济增长数量的提高,但规模扩张却不利于实现效率优先的发展目标,即不利于经济高质量发展。同时,在人口规模巨大优势的情况下,人口老龄化并不是不利于社会经济发展的结果变量,在人口老龄化不断深化并不可逆转的背景下,如何利用仍然规模巨大的劳动年龄人口,提高劳动力资源与其他生产要素的配置效率是保证经济增长的基本路径之一。

China’s population size has entered the stage of negative population growth,population aging has gradually deepened,with far-reaching effects on economic growth.Using provincial data from 1991-2020,this paper investigates the relationship between population size,population aging and the quantity and quality of economic growth using a panel threshold effect model.It is found that under the condition of actual economic operation,with population aging as the threshold variable,the effect of population size on economic growth efficiency is negative,and the effect of expanding or decreasing population size on economic growth quality is stronger than that of economic growth quantity,while the effect of population size on economic growth quantity is positive;under the condition of changing population size,the relationship between population aging and economic growth quantity and economic growth quality is“U”shaped.The relationship between population aging and the quantity and quality of economic growth is“U”shaped.The adjustment of fertility policy can no longer fundamentally meet the needs of high-quality economic development,and it is necessary to rely on technological innovation,industrial structure upgrading,human capital investment,capital concentration,and opening up foreign markets to achieve high-quality economic development.Expanding the size of the population can help increase the quantity of economic growth.However,scale expansion is not easy to achieve the development goal of efficiency first,i.e.,it is not conducive to high-quality economic development.At the same time,with the advantage of huge population size,population aging is not an outcome variable unfavorable to socio-economic development.Against the background of deepening and irreversible population aging,how to utilize the still huge working-age population and improve the allocation efficiency of labor resources and other factors of production is one of the basic paths to ensure economic growth.