China’s working class is forecast to start shrinking
The working-age population is on track to decline in the next century
China’s economy has been catching up to the US economy for a few decades now. Depending on how you calculate it, its gross domestic product has either surpassed that of its major rival or is rapidly approaching it. Although China’s average wages are still significantly lower than those in the US, in the epidemic year of 2020, China’s life expectancy has caught up to that of the US.
China will be experiencing a different, less advantageous kind of economic convergence with the US as this century goes on. One billion people who are considered to be of working age (defined as those between the ages of 15 and 64) have been crucial to China’s economic development, allowing the country to become the world’s workshop and a sizable consumer market.
However, based on UN population forecasts, this group will begin rapidly falling and experience a decline of over two-thirds by the end of the century. The UN also presents a ‘low-fertility scenario’ in which birth rates in China and the US stabilise at lower levels. In it, North America overtakes China in terms of working-age population in 2097 after experiencing a more than 80% decline in China.
China contributed 18.5% of the world’s GDP and 19.2% of the world’s population of working age in 2021.
