China’s working age population will fall more than 10 per cent by 2040 in spite of a recent relaxation of its one child policy, the World Bank warned on Wednesday, heightening the risk of the world’s most populous country “getting old before getting rich”.
The number of potential workers in China, a cohort defined as people between the ages of 15 and 64, fell in 2012 for the first time in decades — a tipping point that has profound consequences for everything from the cost of labour to government and corporate pension burdens.
A further decline of 10 per cent would equate to a net loss of 90m Chinese workers, a number greater than the population of Germany, and is consistent with demographic pressures across East Asia. The working populations of South Korea, Thailand and Japan are also expected to fall by 10 per cent or more over the next 25 years, according to a new report released by the World Bank in Beijing.