Can China turn ageing into an economic asset?

By Alice Su, Senior China correspondent, The Economist

China’s population is shrinking and ageing, a process that will continue apace in 2025. The total fertility rate, or the average births per woman, has fallen to 1.1, far below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population. After a possible small post-pandemic uptick of births in 2024, the auspicious year of the dragon, the birth rate is expected to resume its decline. Meanwhile the number of people over 60 is expected to grow from 300m in 2023 to more than 400m by 2035—that is, from one-fifth to nearly one-third of the population. This bodes ill for China’s economy, with fewer young people working to support more old folks. But state planners think they have found a silver lining: the “silver economy”.