With a 1.44 billion population, China has a median population age of 38 years. In other words, it has an ‘older’ population than Malaysia. Our median age is around 30. An ageing nation is when 7% of its population is 65 or older. An aged nation is one where 14% of its population is 65 years old or older. A super-aged nation is when 20% or more of the population is 65 years or older. Malaysia will reach ageing nation status by 2030 or earlier. China is already an aged nation. It has over 17% of its population aged 65 or higher. Please refer to the info source here at Statista.
China is doing something to reverse this aged status
Article in nst.com.my China has relaxed its family planning policy. For almost 40 years, China enforced a “one-child policy” which was lifted in 2016 due to widespread concerns over an ageing workforce and economic stagnation. Citing a Monday meeting of China’s Politburo leadership committee hosted by President Xi Jinping, Xin Hua said, “To actively respond to the ageing of the population … a couple can have three children.”
National Bureau of Statistics reported that China’s annual births have continued to drop and it was a record low of 12 million in 2020. China’s fertility rate stands at 1.3 — below the level needed to maintain a stable population, the bureau revealed. China also have a gender balance due to decades of one-child policy and a traditional social preference for boys which prompted a generation of sex-selective abortions and abandoned baby girls. Article in nst.com.my
3 major advantages of a positive population growth
#1 – Labour Force. For businesses to grow, it needs to expand. To expand, it needs a bigger labour force. When the population is shrinking, the availability of labour force turns into scarcity. Businesses will find it hard to expand. Automation may help. Robots may help. However, people will always be necessary. I would not want to work in the whole factory with no one but robots…
#2 – Larger Market. When the population is shrinking, the demand for goods and services will continue to reduce with every passing year. Businesses would have to scramble for every customer. The population base is no longer growing and thus, with every passing year, businesses will soon shut its doors as it continue to face escalating cost without sufficient economies of scale. This is a vicious cycle which will be hard to be reversed.
#3 – Prevents ageing population. Imagine the whole town full of people over 65 and very few school-going children. Schools would be so lonely. Teachers may outnumber new students. Imagine whole village, all but deserted as population continue shrinking to a point where there’s just not enough people to provide necessary services and even if they provide, there’s just not enough demand!
Are there just advantages for a growing population?
There are disadvantages too when the population’s growing too fast. That one I leave it to you to google yeah. My preference is for a bigger population because it could spur domestic consumption too. Just need to look at all those big nations and one would realize with a bigger population also comes with a lot more potential opportunities. If one is selling a very good product, it is far better to be selling it within a nation of 1 billion versus a nation where there’s just 100 million population.
Property market popularity?
Property market also does not work when there are fewer demands for homes yeah. Fortunately, the demand for homes are also changing because of demographics. From 10 to a home or 8 to a home, this has gradually decrease to 4 and if we look to the example from advanced nations, this may drop further. People are not just getting married later but there are fewer couples with babies which meant that the demand for homes continue changing too. Stop saying only landed will be in demand yeah…
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