Supervisor(s): Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Sponsor(s): Institute of Population and Labor Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IPLE-CASS) CN：11-1043/C
Chinese Journal of Population Science, sponsored by Institute of Population and Labor Economics at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IPLE-CASS), has published a large number of influential and high quality theory papers, reflects the latest academic research in the field of population and labor and interdisciplinary timely. It is a good way for people to understand the demographic development and provides theoretical information and countermeasures for the state and government decision-making departments. Chinese Journal of Population Science prefers research papers, reviews and surveys with high quality in the field of population and related fields. The contents include population theory and policy research, population statistics, population and economy, human resources and labor economy, social security research, population and society, international comparison of population, population and ecological environment, ethnic minority population and family planning theory and practice, etc.
Based on China’s 2010 national census data and forecast data, this paper uses the indicator of marriage sex ratio of unmarried population and establishes a decomposition model, measures the intensity of marriage squeeze of unmarried men in first-marriage market, and decomposes effects of the sex structure and age structure of unmarried population on the marriage squeeze. The results show that the marriage sex ratio between 2010 and 2050, based on 35-year-old unmarried women, is between 2.1 and 3.1, which is much higher than the level of 1, and generally shows a weakening trend. Among them, the gender structure of unmarried population increases the marriage squeeze of unmarried men, but this effect shows a weakening trend; the age structure of unmarried population eases the marriage squeeze of unmarried men, but this effect is strengthening. This shows that the implementation of a comprehensive two-child policy is conducive to jointly promoting gender balance in China’s future marriage market from both the age structure and the gender structure. In addition, both the period analysis and the cohort analysis found that the marriage squeeze of unmarried men in China increases rapidly with age; elder unmarried men, especially in rural areas, have a very serious marriage squeeze.
On the basis of existing studies on the human development index (HDI), this paper reconstructs an evaluation system that enables simultaneous vertical and horizontal comparisons of HDIs and calculates HDIs of China and India since 1950. The results show that China and India have both achieved tremendous progresses in their economic and social development. In 2014, India’s HDI increased by 2.59 times on the basis of 1950, while that of China increased by 4.41 times during the same period of time. Regarding the three most important elements of HDI, China was behind India on all fronts in 1950, when India’s HDI was higher than that of China by 27.17%. However, China moved ahead on all fronts in 1992, and the gaps between two countries kept expanding. By 2014, China’s HDI was higher than that of India by 18.61%. Further study shows that China surpassed India in education index at first in 1951, followed by longevity index in 1955 and lastly income index in 1992. It shows that, on the one hand, China’s successful social development makes it to greatly surpass India on the economic front. On the other hand, China’s success is also attributable to the Chinese government’s efforts to balance current and long-term interests and to guide the nation’s long-term investment. This finding also shows that current success is attributable not only to the current factors, but also to the historical factors.
Due to the administrative level of the city, municipal districts (and counties), preferential policies and other institutional factors, China’s urban scale efficiency curve rises constantly on the right side, which forms a phenomenon that the efficiency of large cities improved along with the expansion of the scale. Based on the analysis of the Sixth National Population Census data, this paper finds that, in the context of large cities efficiency lock-in, inter-provincial migration is still the main path of urbanization in China, but the explanatory bias is expanding and the explanation is obviously weakened. The explanatory bias of nearby-urbanization has begun to narrow, and the explanation is significantly improved. However, the expansion of explanatory bias of local-urbanization has begun to slow down. The paper points out that the mode of urbanization in China will gradually transit from off-site urbanization to the nearby-urbanization in the future. Current policy should promote actively the nearby-urbanization interior provinces. Yet, local-urbanization in counties does not have the basis of large-scale promotion, especially in the backward areas in central and western China.
According to the assessments of job creation, job losses, net employment, employment’s total configuration and employment’s excessive configuration over China’s employment situation of 1999–2011 and 2012–2016, this paper finds that most sectors in China from 1999 to 2011 have a net employment growth. China’s net employment growth comes from the contribution of job creation, and the part of sectors’ net employment change is smaller than the change of job creation and job losses, and labor allocation effect mainly occurs within the industry. From 2012 to 2016, there was less employment’s total configuration and employment’s excessive configuration, and at the same time, as net employment was less than job losses, it meant that industries employment during this period appeared more cross-industry configuration. In order to find out the reasons for the change, the paper examines the relationship between industrial upgrading, trade structure and employment structure within two steps. The results show that the difference of the relationship between foreign trade, industrial upgrading and employment market allocation is noticeable, which means a significant positive effect of foreign trade on industrial upgrading, and insignificant effect on employment. However, industrial upgrading has a positive effect on employment in some extent. It is because of the non-synchronicity of industrial upgrading, trade structure and employment change. Excluding property rights and monopoly factors, this paper finds that industrial upgrading significantly affects foreign trade and employment, but the effect of trade on employment is not significant. The contribution from industrial upgrading is greater than that from trade to the employment. This phenomenon actually requires us to reexamine the role of state-owned enterprises and monopolies in employment. Its absorption of employment may be underestimated.
Based on the household registration data in 2017, this paper assessed the data of young age group (0–16 years old) of four censuses from 1982 to 2010. The calculation results showed that, the underreporting rates of young age group (0–16 years old) from the 3rd census to the 6th census were 0.88%, 2.87%, 2.87% and 4.11% respectively. During the period from the 5th census to the 6th census, the re-reporting of adolescent population and young and middle-aged working-age population gradually became apparent. In terms of the 5th census and the 6th census, the net re-reported population aged from 14 to 49 rose from 6.77 million to 18.51 million. Lastly, based on young age group data of censuses after modification, this paper re-calculated the number of births, sex ratio at birth and fertility level of Chinese population from 1990 to 2010 and further proved that, due to the underreporting of young age group, the estimated figures of the three indicators in the past had some deviations. From 2005 to 2010, China’s total fertility rate might be between 1.6 and 1.7.
The paper analyzes the positive and negative effects of population aging on the development of the service industry, and conducts an empirical test based on the provincial panel data from 2005 to 2015. The results show that, on the whole, as the construction of China’s modern service industry system adapting to the population aging trend is still in its infancy, the labor costs are increased with aging, and China’s eldercare security system remains to be improved, the increasing population aging will hinder the development of China’s service industry at the current stage; from a regional perspective, due to the differences in regional elemental structures and development phases of the service industry, compared with the central and western regions, the population aging in the eastern region poses more significant impediment to the development of the service industry; further studies show that the improvement of the eldercare security system can, to a certain extent, weaken the negative effect of population aging on the development of the service industry in China. With the increasing population aging, China should respond to the negative effect of population aging and keep promoting the quality development of the service industry by cultivating quality demographic dividends, increasing effective labor supply, and improving the eldercare security system.
