increasing pollution might aggravate the health and healthcare situation in Chinese society and ultimately put more of a burden on the aging and shrinking pool of laborers than decelerated economic growth in a relatively cleaner -- and healthier -- environment would.
this is pure speculation, but i wonder if quantitative analyses could be made that would make such a scenario plausible -- and frightening -- enough to worry Beijing bureaucrats. Cynicism is intellectual treason.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
What is its thrust and application here?
The Chinese can do the numbers, and some most certainly have. I am simply proposing this as one possible way to convey the importance of getting the environment in shape over continued aggressive growth. Cynicism is intellectual treason.
her point is well taken (if i understand correctly) that in the long-run (around 150 years), current birthrates do not really matter as far as the resulting make-up of "working age" vs. "non-working age" segments of the population.
i will see if i can find some numbers on what the changing demographics of China's population are, in particular with respect to the balance of working age to non-working age people. Cynicism is intellectual treason.
As a pure layperson, it seems to me that such a significant drop in the ratio of the working to non-working population is likely to pose a big challenge to Chinese society in the next four decades. Cynicism is intellectual treason.
So I think the talk about the global demograpic crisis is overblown. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Depending on what you consider "constant", China may not be a typical society in this respect.
The number of non-productive citizens went from 50.8% in 1950 to 57.5% in 1970 to about 40% today.
This is probably due in large part to China's birth control policy, among other things China went through in the last 60 years (and more). Cynicism is intellectual treason.
