Macroscope | Focus on women’s workforce participation to improve gender equality and global economy

Name: Chinese reluctant to have children as China reports first population fall in 61 years
Uploaded: 2023-07-12T14:05:01.000Z
Duration: 2 min 14 s
Description: Chinese reluctant to have children as China reports first population fall in 61 years

While policies aimed at influencing fertility warrant attention, more urgency should be applied to increasing women’s labour force participation

Female education is a vital source of support for long-term economic growth, and that growth feeds into a virtuous cycle that can benefit everyone

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Pedestrians cross a road in Osaka, Japan, on February 13. Japan’s female labour force participation rate lags many other developed economies, but it has seen some gains in recent years. Photo: Bloomberg

Ecaterina Bigos

Published: 10:05pm, 12 Jul 2023Updated: 11:01pm, 12 Jul 2023

Earlier this year, the United Nations calculated that in April, India’s population would reach 1.425 billion people, “matching and then surpassing” that of China. The UN indicated that India’s population was set to expand for several decades while China’s has peaked, having experienced a decline in 2022 and potentially falling below 1 billion before the end of the century.

The implications of India dethroning China as the world’s most populous country are significant. As much as the absolute numbers are important, so are the demographic changes within. In many countries, the size of the working-age population – people aged between 15 and 64 – are experiencing a more pronounced change.

From 2018 to 2030, the number of people aged 60 and above globally is expected to rise to 1.4 billion, faster than the growth in the population of the under-60s. The over-60 demographic is expected to account for 16 per cent of the global population by 2030, with Asia having among the fastest-ageing populations in the world. The world’s working-age population growth is in decline.

Broadly, the demographic transition includes first an increase and then a decrease in the share of working-age people in the total population. The initial increase occurs following a sustained reduction in fertility rates, lowering the number of children in the population. The subsequent decrease in the relative size of the working-age population is driven by rapid growth in the proportion of older people.

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Chinese reluctant to have children as China reports first population fall in 61 years

While policies and programmes aimed at influencing fertility warrant attention, even more urgency should be applied to raising the women’s labour force participation rate. Notably, a low female labour force participation rate doesn’t mean women are unwilling to work but rather they are in many instances denied the opportunity to join the formal workforce. As a result, their skills and talents are not fully utilised to maximise their, and society’s, full economic potential.

Employment and social policies need to make it both possible and desirable for women to have children while remaining in the labour force and continuing to develop their careers. These could include approaches such as providing subsidised childcare, maternal and paternal leave, tax credits and supportive corporate frameworks.

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.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Macroscope | Focus on women’s workforce participation to improve gender equality and global economy

Macroscope | Focus on women’s workforce participation to improve gender equality and global economy