3.4 Population aging

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Del curso dictado por The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Social Science Approaches to the Study of Chinese Society Part 1

15 calificaciones

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Social Science Approaches to the Study of Chinese Society Part 1

15 calificaciones

This course seeks to turn learners into informed consumers of social science research. It introduces concepts, standards, and principles of social science research to the interested non-expert. Learners who complete the course will be able to assess evidence and critically evaluate claims about important social phenomena. It reviews the origins and development of social science, describes the process of discovery in contemporary social science research, and explains how contemporary social science differs from apparently related fields. It describes the goals, basic paradigms, and methodologies of the major social science disciplines. It offers an overview of the major questions that are the focus of much contemporary social science research, overall and for China. Special emphasis is given to explaining the challenges that social scientists face in drawing conclusions about cause and effect from their studies, and offers an overview of the approaches that are used to overcome these challenges. Explanation is non-technical and does not involve mathematics. Statistics and quantitative methods are not covered. Explore the big questions in social science and learn how you can be a critical, informed consumer of social science research. Course Overview video: https://youtu.be/QuMOAlwhpvU After you complete Part 1, enroll in Part 2 to learn how to be a PRODUCER of Social science research. Part 2: https://www.coursera.org/learn/social-science-research-chinese-society

De la lección

Social Science Research on China

In Week 3, we will focus on Social Science Research on China. By the end of this week, you should have some sense of major topics in current social science research on China.

3.1 Overview3:06

3.2 Change and continuity7:42

3.4 Population aging5:23

3.5 Migration4:10

3.6 Education, Health, and Wellbeing11:46

3.7 Summary3:56

Conoce a los instructores

Cameron Campbell
Professor of Social Science
Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science

[MUSIC]

Hi, in this module, I'm going to talk about Population Aging in China.

Population Aging is one of the big topics for

social science research on China right now.

For the past few decades, China has been fortunate in that its age

composition has been conducive to rapid economic growth.

Essentially, since the 1980s and

especially since the 1990s until just recently, there were relatively,

as a share of the population, relatively few very young people and

very elderly people and a lot of working-age adults.

These are people that help staff the factories that helped power

China's economic growth in recent decades.

The reason for this fortunate age composition is that birth rates have

been low since at least 1980.

So basically, relatively few young people feeding into the population

in the last few decades, so fewer dependent young people.

Meanwhile, until recently, the share of the population that was elderly was fairly

small because decades ago when the current elderly

population was born, China's population was much smaller.

So we have a relatively small share of the population that was elderly and

had complex needs for healthcare and needs for pension and so forth.

Now this gives some insight into what has been happening in the last two decades.

Let's a look at birth and death rates.

So the real drama here is in birth rates.

As we can see, birth rates fell right around 1980 and they've stayed low.

So again, for now, more than 30 years,

we've had relatively small numbers of young people feeding into the population.

But we had higher birth rates before that, especially in the 60s.

And those were the people that as they got older were working-age in

the late 1980s and the 1990s and a little bit later.

These were the people that, again, helped drive China's economic growth.

In this figure, we see what's been going on in recent years

with the share of the population in China that is elderly.

Again, as I mentioned, there've been fewer young people coming into the population.

And meanwhile, actually death rates at advanced ages have been falling, so

we have more people surviving to old age.

So, just in the space of a few decades,

the percentage of the population that's age 65 and above has risen.

And as of 2014, it was nearly 10%.

And it's going to continue to increase.

This says a number of consequences, as we move forward and

we see China's population increasing in age.

Right now, the number of working-age adults has stabilized and

even within the next two years, it's going to be falling.

The average age of the population is increasing.

The share of the population that is elderly will continue to rise

rapidly over the next few decades.

As the ratio of the population that is elderly increases,

this poses a lot of challenges.

Taking care of the elderly is going to be difficult.

Not just for the government and society, but for families.

Working-age adults may be in a situation where they are taking care of perhaps

their two older parents.

Or, further on down the road, perhaps even four elderly grandparents.

And then, because the numbers of working-age adults is stable or

falling, we see in some parts of the country, labor shortages emerging.

And this will intensify over the next few decades.

It's a big problem and a big challenge for China's economy.

This just summarizes some of the trends

we expect over the next few decades in the composition of China's population.

As you can see, the share of the working-age population between 15 and

59 is going to be dropping steadily.

Meanwhile, the share of the population that is 16 or

above is going to rise rapidly for the next few decades.

And meanwhile, the numbers of very young people will decline relatively slowly.

But it's this increase in the numbers of the elderly that are really the big

challenge.

How do we take care of that many people?

What are the implications for adults having to take care of parents?

What is the implication for pension systems for the healthcare system?

These are all central problems that China will have to face over the coming decades.

And there's a lot of social science research ongoing right now where

people are trying to better understand both what has happened in recent years and

what may happen in the coming decades.

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