Commentary: Raising the retirement age won’t defuse China’s demographic time bomb

THE NEED FOR MIGRATION

There is, however, something that can mitigate this trend: Immigration.

Many of the major countries of the world with very low fertility rates rely on international migration to provide young workers – and these young immigrants also have more babies than the local people.

Compare, for instance, China’s low rate of 0.1 per cent foreign-born with the almost 14 per cent foreign-born in the US and 18 per cent in Germany. Even the East Asian nations of Japan and South Korea have higher foreign-born percentages than China, at 2 per cent and 3.7 per cent, respectively.

Several attempts have been made by the Chinese government to implement policies to increase the birth rate, but they have not worked. In fact, demographers tend to agree that such “pronatalist” policies tend not to be effective.

But it will not be easy to introduce and implement an active immigration policy in China, a country with little experience with immigration and a seemingly deep-rooted belief in racial purity shared by many leaders in the Communist Party.

There may well be resistance to immigration from the wider Chinese population. Young Chinese workers would be the ones most affected by an increase of immigrants. In the early years of any policy that encourages mass immigration, some Chinese would lose their jobs and need to find employment elsewhere. This would especially be the situation for young workers.

But in general, immigrants seek employment in jobs that the local population does not prefer – sometimes referred to as “three Ds jobs”, or those that are dirty, dangerous and demeaning. This has been the case in most European countries and in the US.

And the alternative will be more painful for China in the long run. If an active immigration policy is not implemented, by the beginning of the next century, China will be half as large as it is today and will be one of the oldest countries – if not the oldest country – in the world.

Beijing is already facing the strain of these trends, hence the need for pension reforms. But without the influx of a young immigrant workforce, the problems China faces will be far worse.

Dudley L Poston Jr is Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University. This commentary first appeared on The Conversation.