中国“未富先老”了吗?

This issue of Population and Development Forum brings together contrasting views and arguments on China's population ageing. China is an ageing society, the population of China is and will be rapidly ageing now and in the next few decades. "Getting old before getting rich" has been cited extensively as a typical feature of ageing in China. Recently Professor Li Jianmin, from Institute of Population and Development Studies at Nankai University has challenged this widely held view. He distinguishes between an ageing society and an aged society. Looking at the proportion of the old people, China's age structure could be classified into "old" type. However, this does not necessarily mean China becomes an aged society when examining the impact of ageing on socio-economic development. China's demographic window of opportunity would close by 2030, and the total dependency ratio will be declining in the next decade, down to 38 in 2010, and then gradually rising to 50 in 2030. An international comparison shows that Western European countries were not economically more developed than China when reaching old type population structure. Thus today and in the next 30 years, China is not "getting old before getting rich". China is very likely getting rich when getting old.