SHF2022｜Wang Feng

Wang Feng

Foreign Member of the National Academy of Lincei in Italy;

Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine

Distinguished guests, I am honored to be here to join you although I am not able to be in Shanghai. The year 2022 will be remembered by events such as the ongoing pandemic and the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine. But the year will also be remembered in history by another landmark, which is that East Asia as a whole region starts what we called population decline.  

Let's go back half a century ago to 1970. The change that we are seeing now has been born 50 years ago. Half a century ago, the annual population growth rate for East Asia is 2.44%, which means that the population could double in 28 years. By 2021, a year ago, according to the United Nations, the birth rate of East Asia has dropped to below zero. So you are seeing the beginning of a sustained population decline for the whole region.

For Japan, the process has been moving on for more than a decade, starting from 2010. And for South Korea, the process has started about a couple of years ago. And this year, China will see for the first time in its history — aside from wars, famine, and large-scale pandemics — the population decline.

Last year, China has a population growth of less than half a million people. For a country of 1.4 billion people, that growth is neglectable. And from what we are seeing now, and also by the projection from the United Nations, China will continue, very likely, the population decline from this year. What you can see is the whole region has entered the era of long-term population decline.  

There are different scenarios of population decline. One scenario, given by the United Nations, is to project population challenge based on the “median variant”. For the region as a whole, for East Asia, if the projection comes true, by the end of the century, the region’s population size will be 54.8% of the size in 2022. For Japan, that drop is going to be about 40.6%, so Japan’s population will probably be about 59.4% of what it is now. For China, the drop will be 46.23%, so China will have a population size slightly larger than half of what it is now. The largest drop will be in South Korea, where the population size is projected to be 46.5% of what it is now.

And it is not just the population sizes. In the next 30 years, by the mid-century, more than half of the populations in these countries will be over age 50. Median age of the population in South Korea will be over 60 not much later than the mid-century. So we are not only going to see smaller populations and also much older populations.

How did we get here? We often see the population decline in East Asia as happy outcomes at the individual level. Chiefly among the happy outcomes, is the rapid and consistent increase in life expectancy. For Japan and South Korea, their life expectancy now is about 85 years. In China, it is 78. These are among the longest-living populations in the world.

On the other hand of this process is low fertility. All of our societies have emerged with very low fertility and South Korea is the lowest in the world. Last year, in 2021, South Korea’s total fertility rate —the expected number of children per couple — drops to 0.88, which is less than half of what is expected for the population to replace itself. The rising life expectancy and declining fertility have brought us to this phase.

There are many reasons that we are seeing population decline and low fertility. One of the causes is that a lot of people are not getting married, staying away from marriage. In Japan in the 1980s, only 20% of women in late 20s were not married. In other words, 80% were married. That number is almost flipped to over 60%. In South Korea, the change is even more dramatic. In 2020, 80% of women in their late 20s have never been married. If we look at the women who were never married in their early 30s. Again, 45% in South Korea and almost 40% in Japan, women in their early 30s are single and quite likely will never get married. The number of China is also growing quite rapidly. For age 30 to 34, back in 2000, only about 2% of women were not married. Now it is more than 10%.  

So why are people not having enough children, not having birth? Among these factors, the high cost of living, competitive work environment, lack of childcare facilities, and as often discussed, unequal gender relations in all three societies.

The governments in all three countries have responded to this very low fertility in the last several decades. For Japan, they have the New Angel Plan. In South Korea, the government has put out these 3 five-year plans to address low fertility and aging society. For China, in 2015, 7 years ago, the one-child policy ended. And in the last couple of years, the three-child policy was promoted. The governments all responded. However, if we look at what has happened after policy intervention, we are not seeing any change in Japan since the mid-1980s. Fertility has never gone above 1.5. Fertility in South Korea has dropped to world-record low. In China, fertility again dropped in the last 6 years, only after a 1-year rebound because of the policy.

There are many reasons for this. One of them is gender inequality in the public and private spheres. At the beginning of the pandemic, 2 years ago, a Japanese man posted his own list of household chores on Twitter. His wife provided her list of chores. He only posted 21 and his wife listed 210. This is only one example showing gender inequality not in the public sphere, but in the private sphere.

So the question is: should we be worried? How worried should we be? My view is that we should change our mentality and we should shift from trying to mitigate to adaptation. First of all, let’s look at all three populations. Women’s education in all three countries has all reached a very high level. In South Korea, college enrollment rose to 88%. In China, it is more than 60%, higher than in Japan. If we are looking at income, all three countries have ascended to upper-middle or high-income societies. So we are looking at societies that are much more educated, and with much more material resources.

Most relevantly, let’s look at changes in health and life expectancy. In all three societies, the life expectancy to live after age 65 have doubled or nearly doubled. For instance, in 2020, a 65-year-old in China could be expected to live for another 18 years, up from 9 years in 1950. In South Korea and Japan, circumstances are similar. Therefore, we are now looking at a healthier person at the age of 65, expected to live another 20 or more than 20 years. That health improvement is continued. We are looking at a very different population with a different health profile.

Next, we are getting to the remarks. The first is we are facing the reality that we have to recognize that population aging and population decline for the whole region should begin this year. These are irreversible processes. We appreciate these aggregate outcomes of welcoming improvements in human well-being. We are having healthier, longer lives. People have more freedoms and all societies have abundant material resources. These are what we never had before. So, I think it is time for us to leave behind the mentality to try to reverse population aging and low fertility. It is difficult or even impossible that effort will be to reverse the process. Instead, I think policymakers and also the public need to accept population decline and population aging, and leave behind the mentality that we have to have growth, have to have population and labor increase. Rather, let’s think about how we can adapt to this aging society, to population decline. I think governments and businesses still have the responsibilities to create more equitable and supportive social systems for allowing individuals to have more freedom to have children if they want to. There are many restraints on individuals, especially young women, to achieve their life goals. To that extent, I think governments and businesses still have responsibilities. Thank you very much.

 (This article is edited based on the recording and has not been reviewed by the speaker.)