Author(s):
Maishou Li, Ziyi Dou, Yuxing Chong

Doi: 10.7508/aiem.01.2022.45.50

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Based on the time series data of population age structure and per capita GDP in Henan Province from 1986 to 2020, this paper uses VAR model to analyze the relationship between them. VAR model shows that the age structure of population is closely related to economic growth. In the short run, the total dependency ratio has a negative impact on economic growth, while the working-age population has a positive impact on economic growth. In the long run, both the total dependency ratio and working-age population have positive effects on economic growth. Among them, the influence of total dependency ratio on economic growth reaches a maximum of 6.2% at the 11th period, and the influence on economic growth stabilizes at 5.8% after the 11th period. The impact of working-age population on economic growth reaches a maximum of 23% in the fifth period, and after the fifth period, the impact on economic growth is stable between 17%-18%. On this basis, the age shift algorithm is used to predict the trend of the future population age structure of Henan Province. Considering the effect of future fertility policy liberalization and the adjustment of future fertility policy, two fertility rate scenarios (low (1.19) and high (1.86)) are set to predict the future population age structure. The results show that if the development rate is low, the adolescent population will be about 8.2919 million in 2050, and the aging degree will reach 26.23%; If the development rate is high, the adolescent population will be about 18.0471 million in 2050, and the aging degree will reach 19.14%. Projections suggest that raising the fertility rate effectively can alleviate the problem of the population crunch and ageing. Accordingly, this paper puts forward the policy suggestions of raising the fertility rate, implementing the two-child policy and optimizing the population age structure.

KEYWORDS:
Age Structure Population, Economic Growth, The VAR Model