China’s rapidly aging population will be an obstacle to its economic growth, which will be surpassed by the U.S. in the next several years, according to a top demographer.
Fu-Xian Yi, a specialist in reproductive science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an expert on China’s demographics, pointed out that the share of the Chinese population that’s over 65 had jumped to 15.4% in 2023 from 7% in 1998.
“Historically, no country has managed to achieve 4% growth in the subsequent 12 years after the elderly made up 15% of the population,” he wrote Wednesday in Project Syndicate. “The average growth rate for high-income countries during this period is just 1.8%.”
