| 汪玲,杜浩锋.人口老龄化、供需结构变迁与服务业扩能提质[J].数量经济技术经济研究,2026,(5):205-230 | | 人口老龄化、供需结构变迁与服务业扩能提质 | | Population Aging, Supply-demand Shifts, and Service Sector Upgrading | | | | DOI： | | 中文关键词: 人口老龄化 结构转型 经济增长 服务业发展 | | 英文关键词: Population Aging Structural Transformation Economic Growth Service Sector Development | | 基金项目: | | | 中文摘要: | | 快速人口老龄化正在重塑中国的产业演进与经济增长路径。本文构建包含年龄异质性家户的多部门动态一般均衡模型，探讨人口老龄化如何推动产业结构转型并影响经济发展。本文提出“供需老龄化”机制：在需求端，不同年龄群体消费偏好存在差异，人口老龄化通过改变消费者的年龄构成，影响产业需求；在供给端，不同产业所雇佣劳动力的年龄结构存在差异，人口老龄化通过推动劳动力高龄化，影响产业生产成本。量化分析发现，上述机制解释了 2010~2020 年约 10% 的服务业增加值占比上升。不同人口转变情景下的预测表明，随着人口老龄化程度加深，服务业将面临需求扩张与供给成本上升并存的结构性变化。在此背景下，加快提升服务业生产率、促进服务业优质高效发展，是保持经济稳定增长的重要途径。本文从供需双重结构转型的视角丰富了对人口转变经济效应的理解，也为统筹推动人口和经济高质量发展提供了政策启示。 | | 英文摘要: | | This study examines how population aging affects structural transformation and economic development in China. As China enters a new stage of modernization, population aging has become a defining long-term demographic trend. According to the prediction of the United Nations, China’s population aged 65 and above will exceed 21% by 2034, pushing the country into a stage of deep aging. As a fundamental feature of China’s future development, population aging will reshape both labor supply and household demand, having profound implications for sectoral change and long-run growth. Understanding these mechanisms is important not only from a theoretical perspective but also to advance China’s national strategy to actively respond to population aging.This study proposes and formalizes the concept of demand- and supply-side aging to characterize the dual effects of demographic change on industrial structure. Demand-side aging refers to shifts in consumption structure caused by changes in the population age structure. Compared with younger households, older households display stronger preferences for services, thereby expanding service demand. Supply-side aging refers to changes in factor allocation induced by the aging of the labor force. As service production relies more heavily on younger workers, population aging raises the relative wage of young labor and increases service sector production costs. The rise in production costs pushes up the price of services. Given the complementarity between services and non-service goods, the increase in the relative price of services leads households to consume more services, which further encourages the reallocation of resources toward the service sector.To characterize these mechanisms, this study develops a multi-sector dynamic general equilibrium model with age-heterogeneous households. The model incorporates two production sectors-services and non-services-and differentiates between two types of labor inputs-young and older workers. The two sectors vary in their dependence on workers of different age groups, while households across different age cohorts also exhibit heterogeneous consumption preferences. The model highlights how demographic change shapes structural transformation through both demand- and supply-side channels. The theoretical analysis reveals that under conditions broadly consistent with China’s economic reality that older households have a stronger preference for services, service production relies more heavily on younger workers. Moreover, as services and non-services are complementary in final consumption, population aging raises the service share through the combined effects of demand- and supply-side aging.To quantify these effects, the study calibrates the model to China’s economy from 2010 to 2020. The model is matched to several key empirical moments, including age-specific consumption patterns, the age composition of employment across sectors, and major demographic trends, such as falling fertility and accelerated aging. Simulation results reveal that population aging can explain about 10% of the rise in the value-added share of services during this period. Among this contribution, roughly two-thirds is from demand-side aging and one-third from supply-side aging. This decomposition reveals that the demand-side effect remains dominant, while the supply-side effect is also quantitatively meaningful.The study also explores future industrial evolution and economic growth under rapid population aging. Based on China’s demographic projections in the United Nations’ World Population Prospects 2024, simulations under different fertility and life-expectancy scenarios imply that the value-added share of services will rise by a further 5 to 9 percentage points. Although this trend is consistent with ongoing shifts in demand and labor supply, it may also place downward pressure on aggregate growth. One important reason is that labor productivity growth in China’s service sector lags behind that in manufacturing, so an overly rapid decline in the manufacturing share may weaken the overall growth performance. In this context, raising service sector productivity and promoting high-quality development in services will be essential to sustaining stable growth in an aging society.To further investigate this mechanism, the study evaluates the growth effects of enhancing the total factor productivity (TFP) of the service sector under varying degrees of population aging. It develops three simulation scenarios in which the annual growth rate of service sector TFP rises by 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 percentage points from 2026 onward. The results indicate that improvements in service sector TFP provide a significant boost to economic growth in all scenarios, with the marginal growth effect becoming larger as population aging intensifies. In addition, the growth effect strengthens as the magnitude of the TFP increase expands.This study contributes to the literature in three respects. First, it enriches research on demographic change and structural transformation by identifying the dual demand- and supply-side effects of aging. Second, it demonstrates that aging has not only a quantitative effect on total labor supply but also a structural effect through changes in the age composition of the labor force. Third, it highlights how population aging affects long-run growth through structural transformation and resource allocation across sectors. By integrating these three dimensions, the study offers a more comprehensive understanding of aging’s impacts on structural transformation. Overall, the study provides a new theoretical framework and quantitative evidence for understanding the economic impacts of population aging in China. | | 查看全文 |
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