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International

China's Going To Get Old Before It Gets Rich

China's decision to (further) relax its infamous one-child policy is, as much as anything, an economic decision.

China put the one-child policy in place decades ago, when the country feared a destabilizing population boom. It benefited in the short run — the country slowed its population growth and got a boost to growth since it didn't have as many children to support. Today, China faces a different problem: a precipitous decline in the ratio of working-age people to total population.

This is bad news for the economy as a whole — working-age people are the engine of any economy — and it's especially worrisome for a generation of elderly who don't have big families to support them.

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As the graph shows, this phenomenon is familiar in much of the developed world. But it's especially problematic for China because, despite all the hubbub about economic growth, China is still a poor country, and it can't afford the kind of social safety net that's common in the developed world.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.