This journal is one of the earliest journals on population science in China. It is issued worldwide and indexed by CSSCI, and it is listed as the national Chinese core periodicaland the core periodical on population science.
Editor-in-Chief Yu Xiao
Deputy Editor-in-Chief Wang Xiaofeng, Wang Huabo
Editorial Board Wang Guangzhou, Wang Jinying, Yi Hao, Tian Yipeng, Sun Changzhi, Zhu Yu, Zhang Shiwei, Qiu Hong, Lu Jiehua, Chen Yingzi, Li Shuzhuo, Fan Lida, Yang Chenggang, Yang
The relationship between population ageing and economic growth has aroused so much attention. However, there are few studies dedicating to the in-depth study on how population ageing affects economic growth. Therefore, this study theoretically analyzes the effect of population ageing on economic growth from the perspective of mediating effect and finds that there are three intermediary paths, and namely population ageing can affect economic growth by labor productivity, labor participation rate and the proportion of working-age population. Moreover, the statistical data of 31 provinces from 1990 to 2012 indicate that the three variables have significant mediating effects in deed. In addition, calculation results show that labor productivity and the proportion of working-age population contribute to the growth of per capita GDP, while the path of labor participation rate exerts a negative impact. From the perspective of growth path, the effect of ageing on economic growth is mainly driven by labor productivity. This is because the declined birth rate has prompted most parents to increase their investment in children’s education, which helps accumulate important human capital through knowledge teaching and skill training, though the expansion of higher education has delayed a large number of young workers entering the labor market. Therefore, given the time period covered by this empirical study, labor input is manifested more in quality (labor productivity) advantage in population ageing affecting economic growth, and that is, the rapid economic growth is achieved by improving labor productivity.
The distribution of population in capital circle of China presented the “core-periphery” pattern, which is that the population density declines from the center of Beijing and Tianjin to the periphery. Based on the theoretical explanation and empirical test, we obtain the following conclusions. The formation of population spatial distribution in capital circle does not happen overnight. The initial population size and natural geographical endowment are the basis of its formation and development. The “core-periphery” spatial distribution pattern of the population in the metropolitan area is the result of “game” and “confrontation” between a series of agglomeration and dispersion, in which the employment opportunities, wage levels and the number of colleges and universities that reflecting the strength of science and education are the main agglomeration, while housing price, traffic congestion and water shortages are the major dispersion force, and the water resource shortage has the most restrictive effect. The distribution pattern is also reflected the different stages of economic development of the cities, the central mega-cities have been in the late stage of industrialization, so they have greater demand of high-end labor force and low-end labor serving for high-end labor force, while for the metropolitan outer cities, intensive industry is still dominant, and the ability to absorb the population and labor force is weak. In the future, in addition to following the laws of urbanization development, it is necessary to improve and regulate the above-mentioned agglomeration and dispersion force that lead to excessive concentration of population and their contrastive relationships, through the involvement of government force, especially to advance and implement the strategy of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration, and to accelerate the pace of urbanization in Hebei province, so as to narrow the regional development gaps with Beijing and Tianjin as soon as possible, which will become the way to promote the reasonable formation of the population space pattern and the coordinated development of population, resources, environment and economy in the capital circle.
The implementation of the two-child policy is beneficial to the optimization of the population structure and the promotion of the population balance. As a matter of fact, however, the fertility intention of families in childbearing age is lower because of the high cost. The implementation of the two-child policy and the change form of the future population require not only scientific assessment of the second-child cost but also establishment of a reasonable mechanism for the allocation of reproductive cost. Based on a set of micro data, the paper valuates and calculates the fertility cost in cities such as Guangzhou, Chongqing, Wuhan, Nanchang, Weifang and Yuxi. The result indicates that the cost is higher than CNY 0.7 million in Guangzhou, Chongqing and Wuhan. As expected, Guangzhou has the highest price up to CNY 0.87 million. Additionally, Nanchang and Weifang have the same figure approaching to CNY 0.5 million. Specifically, the education cost accounts for the largest proportion. Furthermore, after analyzing the sharing of the fertility in present situation, we argued that individuals are much more responsible than the government and society. In order to relieve the burden on families that want a second child and maintain the population balance in the long-term future, we argue that a cost-sharing mechanism should be set up for a multilateral participation in which the government, society and families can play a role jointly and clarify respective responsibilities. Therefore, the socialization of the fertility cost-sharing mechanism can be promoted.
The migration and transfer of rural labor are important for anti-poverty in rural areas, which play important roles in alleviating poverty in rural areas. Taking the survey data of 1749 peasant households in Gansu Province as the research samples, this paper puts forward four hypotheses about the relationship between labor migration and poverty based on descriptive statistical analysis. Aiming at the proposed hypotheses, adopting Double-log model, this paper makes an elasticity analysis on peasant household’s income, and finds that the migrant labor in rural household has a significant positive effect on per capita income in rural household. After the further regression analysis of the factors affecting the migrant labor in rural households by using the Probit model, this paper finds that the ages, genders, occupation, education level, health status, place of employment and main skills of the migrant labor have an important direct effect on the migration of rural labor and indirectly affect the poverty situation of the family, so as to prove the proposed hypotheses directly or indirectly. There is a bidirectional relationship between labor migration and poverty, and the income of migrant workers is the major source of income of rural household. Therefore, labor migration plays a positive role in reducing the incidence of poverty in rural areas, promoting the rational allocation of agricultural production elements and alleviating rural ecological poverty.
As an important indicator of the quality of later life among older adults, the family intergenerational relation is changing silently due to socio-economic and cultural changes. Moreover, under the impact of traditional Chinese family culture of filial piety, the typology of intergenerational relations might be different with the typology based on the Western culture. Therefore, this paper utilized the six dimensions of intergenerational solidarity model to analyze the typology of intergenerational relations between adult children and older parents by using the 2012 pilot survey of China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey and the exploratory latent class model. After comparing the fitting indexes of models for several categories, we found that the types of intergenerational relationships between adult children and older parents were mainly divided into three categories, including: tight-knit, supportive but distant, and detached. One third of the relationships are supportive but distant, more than half of them are tight-knit and one tenth of them are detached. Comparing with the previous studies, we found that the tight-knit and the detached relationships are still respectively the primary mode and the least mode of intergenerational relationship in China. However, when comparing with the “supporting and living together” mode under the traditional culture of filial piety, the supportive but distant mode shows that the intergenerational relations are changing and there are some emerging types. It might be caused by that the adult children want to be in line with filial piety to support the older parents, and want to live apart from older parents so as to keep independence, personality development and privacy at the same time. Related government departments should make some public policies in promoting the tight-knit mode and reducing the detached mode, and take some measures to support the caring work which would be short in the supportive but distant mode.
Nowadays, the proportion of the new generation of rural migrant workers in total migrant workers has been over 70%. These migrant workers are located in various regions and the economic development level and cultural features could be crucial influence factors. So manual wages of the new generation of rural migrant workers could be quite different from place to place. This is a wonderful chance to enhance the wage level and life style of the new generation migrant workers. Herein, based on 4268 questionnaires completed by the new generation of rural migrant workers, our research made comparison and analysis of manual wages of the new generation of rural migrant workers and the absolute difference and relative difference among eastern China, central China, western China and northeastern China. At the same time, we built a model which fits most factors that will influence the wages of the new generation of rural migrant workers. This model will also test heteroscedasticity and help to choose the best regression method to check the influences of human and social capital on workers’ wages. As a result, when it comes to absolute difference, eastern China won the most. While for western China, the difference of wages is the least. As for central and northeastern regions, their wage absolute differences are briefly in neutral position between the eastern region and western region. As for relative difference comparison and analysis, eastern and central regions came out with the largest difference, followed by northeastern and western regions. In terms of human capital, manual wages of the new generation of rural migrant workers in the eastern region are mainly influenced by human capital itself. For central regions, manual wages of the new generation of rural migrant workers are mainly limited by manual working ages and expanded human capital. In western regions, manual wages of the new generation of rural migrant workers are positively influenced by human capital, while in northeastern regions, manual wages are easy to be positively affected by fundamental human capital factors except educational background. The number of skills also has positive influence on relative wage difference in the northeastern region. In terms of social capital, the manual wages of the new generation of rural migrant workers in eastern, central and western regions are mainly determined by the number of people who have made a Happy New Year wish (the greeting is always accompanied with money giving for blessing better future), and the number of non-local friends and classmates. While in northeastern regions, manual wages of the new generation of rural migrant workers are mainly influenced by the number of people who have made a Happy New Year wish, and the number of local friends and classmates.
