Demographic factors in the rise of the Northeast in history
In the early Qing Dynasty, only 400,000 people were left in the Northeast after the Manchus entered the Middle Kingdom. Beginning in the seventh year of the Kangxi period (1668), the Qing court regarded the Northeast as a land of dragon prosperity and restricted the migration of Han Chinese to cultivate it. From then on, the northeast region into the 200-year-long "ban". And Shandong and other places "little land, people thick", and drought, floods, military disasters, banditry, forced to make a living, a large number of refugees have to "break into the East".
The rise of Russia, China's northeastern eye, the Qing government had to start in 1860 to lift the implementation of more than 200 years in the northeast of the "embargo", "Yan, Zhao, Qilu people negative Lei to", "provincial merchants and businessmen. "Provincial merchants also converge to gather", so "the land to open up, the people to gather, the phenomenon of prosperity is gradually different from the former times".
After the Meiji Restoration, Japan quickly became an industrialized power, and the Soviet Union became the world's second largest economy after 1931. The rise of the two industrial powers, Russia and Japan, brought unprecedented development opportunities to the neighboring Northeast China, which attracted immigrants from the mainland like a sucker punch. The population of the Northeast increased from 3.3 million in 1871 to 18 million in 1911 and 40 million in 1940; the proportion of the Northeast's population in the country increased from 0.9 percent in 1870 to 7.8 percent in 1940.
From 1870 to 1940, the population of Russia increased by 121%, that of Japan by 112%, and that of the United States, the great emigrant country, by 230%, while that of China increased by only 45%, but the population of Northeast China increased by 1123%. It can be said that at that time, the Northeast is the world's fastest-growing population in the region, in human history is also unique, and immigrants have a good overall quality (a high proportion of young adults, physical fitness, pioneering spirit).
Sufficient population resources "flour" in the Northeast "rolling pin" was made into delicious "bread", the Northeast has become China's most developed areas, in 1943 In 1943, the coal production in Northeast China accounted for 49% of the country's total production, pig iron production accounted for 87%, steel production accounted for 93%, electric power accounted for 78%, and railroad lines accounted for 42%. in 1942, the level of urbanization in Northeast China reached 23.8%, which was equivalent to the level of the whole country in 1986. Northeast China even surpassed Japan as Asia's top economy by 1945.
After 1949, China interrupted international trade and there was less population movement. However, the population of the Northeast, as the "eldest son of **** and the country" (including parts of the former Jehol province), continued to increase, with the proportion of the total population in the country rising from 7.64% in 1953 to 9.05% in 1982. During this time, the population inflow into the Northeast was basically concentrated in Heilongjiang (supposedly developing the Northern Great Barrens), while Liaoning still lost population.
Due to the reorganization of the national economy, the Northeast's first-mover advantage was gradually lost, and the economy's share of the country declined to 14.0% in 1978, but the per capita GDP was still 1.55 times higher than the national average.
The core factor in the decline of the Northeast is population
There are many reasons for the decline of the Northeast, such as the planned economy and the high proportion of state-owned enterprises, "the ship is large inertia," and it is not easy to turn around. In addition, the Soviet Union's economy went downhill, the collapse of the Soviet Union after the Russian economy is a long-term recession, the northeast of the loss of geopolitical advantage. China-Russia trade volume is not large, to the northeast of China's trade opportunities are small. China-Japan, China-Korea trade volume is large, but because of the North Korean blockade, economic and trade opportunities did not flow into the northeast.
But the core reason for the Northeast's decline is demographic. The Northeast's resident population aged 20-39 as a percentage of the country began to decline in 1982, from 10.1 percent in 1981 to 8.1 percent in 2010 and 7.6 percent in 2015. Northeast China has not been able to "produce" as much population as Jiangxi and Guangxi on the one hand, and "attract" as much population as the Yangtze River Delta on the other.
Northeast population did not flow out, but the fertility rate is super low
Many people think that the northeast labor force accounted for the proportion of the country declined because of the outflow of population. In fact, the Northeast still had a net inflow of people, both total and young, until 2010, when there was also a 0.4 percent inflow of young 20-39 year olds in the Northeast.
In fact, provinces such as Jiangxi and Guangxi had higher population loss rates and large outflows of labor, but the proportion of young laborers remaining in the province as a percentage of the country remained stable or even increased due to higher fertility rates that replenished the population.
While the proportion of young laborers in the Northeast to the nation has been declining because of the long-term low fertility rate. People see Northeasterners all over the country and mistakenly think it's an exodus from the Northeast, when in fact the Northeast has people from all over the country as well.
Is there a population exodus from the Northeast as the economy has declined in recent years? Calculated based on census data over the years, between 2010 and 2015, there was a slight inflow in Liaoning; there was a slight outflow in Jilin and Heilongjiang, both less than 0.1 percentage points. Overall, the rate of population loss in the Northeast is still very low.
The Northeast's declining share of the nation's household population aged 20-39 is due to a chronically low fertility rate. To maintain generational replacement of the population, developed countries need a fertility rate (the number of children per woman) of 2.1, while China currently needs a fertility rate close to 2.3. The Northeast's fertility rate began to decline in the late 1960s, and declined more than the nation's in 1970, falling below the replacement level of 2.3 in 1980, eleven years before the nation's. The Northeast's fertility rate is still very low, but it is still very low.
If we want to revitalize the Northeast, we should have encouraged births in 1980. It is too late to revitalize the Northeast, and there are no more "people" to do so.
Why do people in the northeast not want to have children?
There are several reasons for the low fertility rate in the Northeast:
First, the Northeast has a high level of urbanization. The urbanization rate in the Northeast reached 23.8 percent in 1942, compared with about 10 percent nationwide.In 1975, the national average urbanization rate was 17.37 percent, compared with 36.47 percent, 32.34 percent, and 36.48 percent in Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang, respectively; and in 2010, it stood at 49.7 percent nationwide, compared with 62.1 percent, 53.4 percent, and 53.4 percent in Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang, respectively.
The Northeast has a high level of urbanization, 55.4%. The fertility rate in the Northeast was already below replacement level when the one-child policy was introduced in 1980. In other words, not only should the one-child policy not have been implemented in Northeast China in 1980, but measures should have been taken to guard against an excessive decline in the fertility rate.
Second, the quality of urbanization is not high. As an old industrial base with a high proportion of planned economy, the Northeast's economy has been declining as a proportion of the country's since the reform and opening up, and a large number of workers have been laid off, making life more difficult for many. Although the Northeast's per capita GDP has long been higher than the country, but the city's expenses than the rural areas, the Northeast's urban per capita income level is lower than the country's, for example, in 2010, the urban per capita disposable income in Jilin Province was 15,411 yuan, lower than the national average of 19,109 yuan. 2012, the urban per capita disposable income in Heilongjiang Province was 17,760 yuan, ranked the bottom 3 in the country, higher only than the Qinghai and Gansu.
Thirdly, traditional fertility culture is poorly inherited. In many places in the South, there are ancestral tombs and ancestral shrines that have been in existence for thousands of years or hundreds of years, and the traditional fertility culture has been preserved relatively well. While the Northeast is mostly descended from immigrants, the traditional cultural roots are shallow.
Fourth, the government's strict grasp of family planning, and the Northeast system has a high proportion of the population, there is no condition and willingness to over-birth.
Fifth, the Northeast because it is "*** and the country's eldest son", two generations of people have formed excessive trust in the country, the national policy of the people's hearts, the concept of raising children to prevent old age is weak. Many people firmly believe that "old age does not rely on children rely on the government", there is no need to raise children.
Sixth, the marriage rate is low, the divorce rate is high, the marriage and childbearing age is late, and the proportion of older unmarried men and women is high.
For these reasons, the people of Northeast China have become accustomed to the one-child policy, and the idea of having fewer children is y rooted. If young people in Northeast China want to have more children, the biggest resistance many of them face is not the Family Planning Commission, but both parents. Many elderly people would rather square dance than bring up their grandchildren.After the introduction of a separate two-child policy in 2014, a large number of people in the Northeast were eligible, but the application rate was so low that the number of births in 2015 was even lower than in 2010. Ethnic minorities in the Northeast have a relatively relaxed population policy, but the birth rate is also very low.
By contrast, Guangdong's household population has a much higher fertility rate than the nation's. The nationwide family planning policy was fully implemented in 1973, the one-child policy was introduced in some areas after 1978, and the one-child policy was introduced in all provinces in 1980. Guangdong, however, practiced a relatively liberal population policy. According to the 1982 census, Guangdong's fertility rates in 1979, 1980 and 1981 were 3.0, 3.0 and 2.9, compared with 2.7, 2.4 and 2.3 nationwide.
Guangdong introduced the Guangdong Family Planning Regulations on Feb. 2, 1980, the first local regulation on family planning in China, which explicitly allowed for the birth of two children. Ren Zhongyi, who later took charge of Guangdong, was also forward-looking in his thinking on population, saying that China's greatest resource was its human resources, and that only by emancipating his mind could the demographic burden be turned into a national advantage.
In 1986, Guangdong Province amended the 1980 Regulations, tightening the policy for city dwellers to "one child" while still retaining the two-child policy in the countryside, and the 1992 and 1997 versions of the Regulations also retained the two-child policy in the countryside. In other words, Guangdong's one-and-a-half-child policy predates that of the rest of the country; and when the one-and-a-half-child policy was being implemented in rural areas across the country, Guangdong's rural areas were already implementing a full two-child policy.
It wasn't until 1998 that Guangdong amended its Regulations to abolish the two-child policy.
Based on the national fertility rate, the two-child policy allowed Guangdong's household population to have more than 5 million extra children from 1981-1998, giving it the youngest population structure in the country.
Economic outlook by labor force structure
Northeast China's bottomless outlook, Sichuan and Chongqing's rebound, Guangdong's lead, and the Yangtze River Delta's loss of dominance.
The total population of Northeast China and Sichuan and Chongqing is comparable to 109 million people, and the proportion of the resident population aged 20-39 years old in the country declined from 10.1% in 1981 to 8.1% in 2010, while that of Sichuan and Chongqing declined from 9.8% to 7.2% over the same period, which is a bigger decline than that of Northeast China. However, the economic share of Sichuan and Chongqing began to rebound in 2006, and the economic growth rate has led the country in recent years; while the economic share of the Northeast continues to decline, and the economic growth rate is at the bottom of the country. This can also be explained from a demographic point of view.
The proportion of young laborers in the Northeast is declining because they are having too few children, while the decline in Sichuan and Chongqing is due to the outflow of labor. For example, in 2010, Sichuan and Chongqing lost 20 percent of their young adult labor force aged 20-39. But these outgoing laborers are still sending money home to raise their children and elders, and are still contributing to domestic demand and the economy in their hometowns.
And in recent years, the labor force in Sichuan and Chongqing has begun to return. 2010 to 2015, Chongqing's labor force has been returning, which is the biggest driver of Chongqing's economic growth in recent years leading the country. Sichuan's labor outflow has also begun to slow down, and the return flow has increased. And no one in the northeast is sending money back nor can they return.
The Northeast's household population aged 0-19 accounted for only 6.0% of the nation's in 2010, meaning that even if the labor outflow can be curbed, the percentage of the nation's prime-age workforce aged 20-39 will still fall from 7.6% in 2015 to 6.0% in 2030, and the economic share will continue to decline. The northeast has the oldest demographic structure, the demographic crisis is the first to break out, the future economic vitality is much lower than the country, and the potential for population outflow has increased. If effective measures are not introduced, the outflow of young labor, for the aging of the Northeast will be worse.
And in 2010, Sichuan and Chongqing accounted for 8.8 percent of the nation's household population aged 0-19, meaning that reserve labor resources are still relatively abundant. Sichuan and Chongqing's economy has rebounded from 5.4 percent of the country's total in 2006 to 6.3 percent in 2015 and 6.5 percent in 2016, leading the nation in economic growth in recent years. The "Belt and Road" also puts Sichuan and Chongqing in a favorable position in the international trade system. Sichuan and Chongqing will not only be able to curb the population outflow, but also may be able to attract labor inflow, and the economy's share of the nation's economy in 2030 will at least return to the 1978 level of 7.4 percent, and may even exceed 8.5 percent.
Looking at Guangdong and the Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang) from the same perspective, the proportion of foreign labor flowing into the Yangtze River Delta is lower than in Guangdong. In terms of young "productive" labor, the YRD is not only lower than Guangdong, but also lower than the whole country.
Guangdong both attracts and "produces" population, resulting in an increasing proportion of young laborers in the country and an increasing proportion of the economy. The young demographics will make Guangdong's economy more dynamic than the nation's for a long time.
The Yangtze River Delta, on the other hand, has attracted a foreign labor force that has only compensated for the decline in the proportion of the local labor force in the country, has an older demographic structure than the country as a whole, and has a lower economic vitality than the country as a whole, and its attractiveness to the outflow of population has been declining. It is expected that the total population of the YRD will drop to 11.0% of the country in 2030, with an even greater drop in the proportion of people aged 20-39, and the per capita GDP advantage will continue to decline, so that the total economic share of the country is likely to be less than 15%, or even only 13%, in 2030.
Economic outlook across the region from median age
Median age is the age of the person who sits at the midpoint when the entire population is ranked by age. Since the more young people there are in an economy, the more innovatively dynamic that economy is, the median age actually reflects innovative dynamism and affects the rate of technological progress in the economy, and thus the potential growth rate of the economy.
In 2015, the five oldest countries in the world were Japan, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Greece, with median ages of 46.6, 46.2, 45.9, 44.0, and 43.6, respectively. The median age of these countries is negatively correlated with the economic growth rate from 1951-2015. Population data are adopted from the United Nations World Population Prospects - 2015 Revision medium scenario, and economic growth rates are adopted from data compiled by the World Association for Research on Large Enterprises.
Overall, it is a general trend that the economic growth rate declines with the median age in all countries, and in Germany, the economic growth rate has been declining after the median age exceeds 35 years. However, due to the different industrial structure, the GDP growth rate of each country is different under the same median age. Germany is an example of a country that has been able to maintain its economic growth despite aging. One of the reasons is that while other European countries are moving their businesses out of the country because of labor shortages and greed for cheap labor in developing countries, Germany has been able to keep its businesses in the country, maintaining a competitive edge in the real economy and a lower unemployment rate. Greece, on the other hand, has a rapidly shrinking manufacturing sector and a higher unemployment rate. Japan and Italy are somewhere between Germany and Greece.
But due to labor shortages and structural aging, the proportion of the workforce engaged in industry as a percentage of the total workforce is also declining in Germany and Japan, from 40.9% and 34.4% in 1991 to 28.0% and 25.8% in 2013. Germany is highly dependent on immigrants, but is now beginning to experience a migration crisis.
Relatively speaking, Japan and Germany are considered to be rich before they are old, and are relatively comfortable in dealing with aging; while Greece and China (especially Northeast China) are old before they are rich, and are helpless in the face of rapid aging. When the median age of Greece, Northeast China, and China as a whole exceeded 38 years in 1999, 2009, and 2015, respectively, GDP per capita was only $11,817, $7,069, and $10,568, respectively, in constant 1990 international dollars, whereas in Japan, Germany, and the United States when the median age exceeded 38 years in 1992, 1993, and 2015, respectively
Some scholars believe that China still has a late-comer advantage. In fact, the late-comer's advantage only gives the possibility and space to catch up, but to successfully use the late-comer's advantage to achieve economic growth, it needs the support of a considerable amount of young labor force. If there is not enough young labor force, latecomer is not an advantage but a disadvantage. Greece is a case in point.
In 1950, Greece's median age was four years younger than that of the United States, and its GDP per capita equivalent to that of the United States increased from 20 percent in 1950 to 50 percent in 2008. But in 2008 Greece's median age was 3.9 years older than the U.S., and by 2038 it will be 10 years older. The gap between its GDP per capita and the U.S. began to widen again in 2008, and in 2015 it was only 37 percent of the U.S. It will continue to fall.
Japan, too, was eight years younger than the United States in 1950, and with its young demographics, its GDP per capita equivalent to the United States increased from 20 percent in 1950 to 85 percent in 1991. But Japan's median age surpassed the U.S. in 1969 and was 5 years older than the U.S. in 1992, and was no longer able to catch up, and the income gap with the U.S. widened again, with GDP per capita dropping to 69% of the U.S.'s in 2015, and continuing to fall.
In 1979, the median age of the United States is 30 years old, China is 22.7 years old, 7.3 years younger than the U.S. With the young demographics, the income gap between the two countries continues to narrow, China's GDP per capita equivalent to the U.S. increased from 4.4% in 1980 to 32% in 2015. But in 2015 China's median age began to overtake that of the U.S. In 2030 China will be 45 years old and the U.S. only 40; in 2050 China will be 56 and the U.S. only 42. The implication is that China's per capita income has less incentive to catch up with the U.S., and the gap with the U.S. will widen again by about 2030.
The nation's most aging demographics are in the Northeast, and the youngest are in Guangdong.In 2015, the median age of the nation was 38 years old, and that of Guangdong was 34 years old (34 years old for the household population); in the Northeast, it was 43 years old, which is equivalent to the level of the nation in 2027, and that of Guangdong in 2032, with Jilin and Heilongjiang both at 42.6 years old, and Liaoning at more than 44 years old.In 2015, the world's median age of more than 44 years old Only three countries, Japan, Germany and Italy.
The industrial structure of Northeast China is far inferior to that of Japan and Germany, and the economic growth rates of Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin in 2015 were 3.0%, 5.7%, and 6.5, respectively, which have been quite dazzling. But the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection published a report that mentioned "a period of time in Liaoning province widespread economic data falsification problems", Liaoning's economic growth rate in 2016 was only -2.5%.
The median age of the Northeast will begin to exceed that of Greece, Germany and Japan in 2017, 2022 and 2027, respectively, becoming the world's oldest demographic region. As you can see, the economic outlook for the Northeast is very bleak. The Northeast's aging ahead of the nation by about 12 years means that the economic outlook for the nation is not promising either.
Even if every effort is made to encourage births, China's median age in 2030 will still be close to 45. Age structure affects social mentality, with Guangdong being the most open and the northeast the most conservative. Judging from the demographics, the country's social mentality will continue to "northeasternize".
If the Northeast is required to pursue the same economic growth rate as Guangdong, it will not be able to catch up even if it is out of breath, but will be exhausted; it may also drive the local government to falsify economic data, as it did in Liaoning province some years ago, leading to a local financial crisis. As population ageing spreads throughout the country, economic data falsification will also spread throughout the country, and the central government will not be able to grasp the true economic situation of the country. Therefore, governance should be based on "people" rather than across-the-board.
The oldest part of the northeast should "recuperate" and optimize its economic structure so that it can maintain economic growth despite its poor demographics, as Germany has done. If the Northeast can explore an effective "health" way, the country also has a reference point.
And the youngest Guangdong economy can still "sprint" a few years. From the Guangdong situation, we can also see that China is now encouraging childbearing, not necessarily immediate effect on the economy in the near future, but will give the economy and society in the next few decades to inject sustained vitality, will change all aspects of society, work near and far.
Revitalization of the Northeast, to start from the revitalization of the population
Currently in the world, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Italy, Germany, deep in the low fertility crisis, but the crisis in Northeast China is even more serious. The situation in all of China is also grim.
The 2015 Statistical Bulletin of National Economic and Social Development shows that in 2015, the peak year for births of two separate children, not only did more than 2 million more births occur as expected, but 320,000 fewer were born.
China's 1-child birth rate is the lowest in the world because the one-child policy, which has lasted for more than three decades, has completely undermined the demographic structure and population ecology, and changed people's concept of childbearing. And all of China's economic and social policies and urban planning have been planned around the one-child family structure, and even if family planning were to stop, these economic and social policies and urban planning patterns would still continue in an inertial manner.
It is very difficult to encourage fertility in mainland China. In order to effectively raise the fertility rate, it is necessary to adjust the entire economic model, educational model, cultural model, and urban construction model, reduce housing prices, reduce urban population density, raise fertility intentions, increase child welfare, establish a comprehensive child care system, and reduce the cost of raising families.
The difficulty of these reforms, and their impact on society for centuries to come, will exceed the economic reforms of 1979. To revitalize the Northeast, we must start by revitalizing the population, and the fertility rate should be an important assessment indicator for revitalizing the Northeast. Only when the population has recovered its ability to develop sustainably will it mean that the economy of the Northeast is on a sustainable path.