Population Change and Future Strategies in China, Japan and Korea

Abstract

A country's population changes with change of the other countries' population; therefore, any country cannot be kept as a close population. In the same manner, one country' socio-economic situation is affected by population change of the other countries'. Thus, this study aims to suggest the future strategies for population, taking into considerations the change in population dynamics, its socio-economic impacts and related policies of China, Japan and Korea. As a result, it is found that the demographic transition has progressed with strong similarity among three countries. Of course, the timing and speed of the transition differs from one country to another because of different socio-economic backgrounds. Population decline started from 2011 in Japan and will start from 2031 in Korea and from 2030~2035 in China. Population ageing will accelerate in the future for all three countries. Due to such demographic change, all three countries will experience slowdown of economic growth and increase in burden for social security in the future. Three countries started pro-natality policy after anti-natality policy; in 2004 for Japan, in 2006 for Korea, and in 2014 for China. Based on those results, this study suggests the population strategies into future for Korea and for three countries in collaborative manner. The population strategies for Korea include the fertility level, increasing utilization of potential workforce, and encouraging immigration of highly skilled foreign workforce; the last strategy needs to be adopted in the long-term according to the results of two former strategies. The strategy for three countries include co-research on population change and its impacts with co-establishing population research institute, holding population forum at the governmental level, co-establishing the institute for co-ordinating the balance of demand and supply of manpower among three countries, establishing collaborative system for fostering aging-friendly industries, etc.