2016-10-25

China Youth Population Tumbling: Which Regions Will Live, Which Will Die?

An evergreen topic in financial media is the collapse in youth population as the younger cohorts rise. The latest article asks, which cities and provinces still have a future?

Top tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have horrible fertility, but they are IQ shredders like Singapore, ever pulling in talented youth. They can get by as long as they can attract migrants. They, along with Tianjin, appear in green on the chart below. The Y-axis is cumulative GDP growth over the past 6 years, while the X-axis is the proportion of 0-19 age cohort in the last census.

Way out to the upper right is Guizhou and Tibet. Minorities are more than one-third of Guizhou's population and Tibet is mostly populated with Tibetans. Minorities in China were allowed two-children while the one-child policy was in effect.

In the lower left are the Manchurian provinces of Jilin Heilongjiang and Liaoning, the latter of which is expected to show another contraction of GDP in Q3.

At bottom, in red, are outliers Hebei and Shanxi, hurt by the downturn in commodities.

One of the provinces headed over a demographic cliff is Jilin, with a large population set to retire and a steady collapse in population all the way down the population pyramid. Jilin is second on the left below. Red is the provincial population pyramid, in all cases blue is the nation.
Another 5--10 years, the annual number of retirements will be the new Jilin 2.5 times the number of workers to participate, and this situation is very scary.
The article goes on to discuss the demographic war set to unfold. Provinces rich in youth look to keep them at home with attractive urban development, while first-tier and eastern cities try to lure them away.
From the above comparison of several groups of the population structure, we can see that most parts of the country, the reserve population 20 years of age compared with 80 population peak has a sharp decline, but the magnitude of decline in all regions is different. The foreseeable future, "the young demographic battle" will be the first-tier cities in addition to the provinces and cities of the norm. From the global experience, young workers tend to be more of a large metropolitan area, population and therefore the battle, also depends largely on the degree of development of the various regions of the core cities, urban band.
The rest of East Asia likely provides a decent roadmap:
In a serious aging problem of Japan, Korea and Taiwan, for example, while small towns are dying, and the other side is in Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei metropolitan area has grown. South Korea, half of the population of 50 million people concentrated in the Seoul metropolitan area, Japan's 120 million people, nearly one-third of the population concentrated in the Tokyo metropolitan area. If the country's population of more than 90 after 80 after playing six fold: it might not be discounted mega-cities, cities hit 6 fold, the county hit 3 fold, leaving only 1 rural areas may fold.
Possible winners include Shenzhen and Dongguan, while Zheijiang and Jiangsu (cities such as Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing) could stagnate due to the drop in youth population:
For developed regions, with the roll-out of labor-intensive industries, the cage for birds, attracting high-population, has become the key to the continued vitality. On this point, deep Wan is doing quite well, and now the Shenzhen and Dongguan has become the core of the global smart phone and only hardware chain. Shenzhen is also the introduction of a large number of well-known university campuses and hospitals to make up for their lack of education and health care. Wando deep rapid industrial upgrading also brings speed up housing prices.

Jiangsu and Zhejiang look at: In addition to the rise of electronic business, and now are faced with the entire Zhejiang traditional export products of light industry recession, the emerging high-tech industry shortage, Zhejiang has become the bank's bad debt hardest hit. Similarly, Sunan future is not optimistic, Suzhou , Wuxi, as the representative of the heavy chemical industry, stagnation and transferring electronic processing industry, Rongsheng Heavy Industries, Suntech's huge losses, reflects the post-industrial era these traditional industrial city transition embarrassment.

Jiangsu and Zhejiang in the southeast coast as a proportion of the young population reserve lowest province in the next 10 years, becoming a Premium Edition, version southern Liaoning, dragged down by the sharp slowdown in economic aging, it may be a high probability event.
Zhejiang and Jiangsu have seen population growth slow rapidly, and may even be starting to see outflows:
Some people will say: Jiangsu and Zhejiang as the coastal provinces, there will be a large number of young migrants inland to solve the problem of its younger population. But really the case?

Here is the 2000, 2010, 2015 Jiangsu, Zhejiang and the resident population and household population changes. Can be seen from 2010 to 2015, both in Jiangsu or Zhejiang, the average annual growth rate of the resident population are far and compared to 10 years ago, and the growth rate is higher than the resident population from the household population growth becomes low in the household population growth. This shows that in the past few years, Jiangsu and Zhejiang native population growth stopped and even showed a slight net outflow of state.

Thus, in the country of young population greatly reduced labor-intensive industries and coastal premise, even wealthy as Jiangsu and Zhejiang, can no longer be filled by the native population of young workers, the future can only rely on their endogenous young population.
Zhejiang is on top in the chart below, Jiangsu underneath. The top number is the total population, the bottom number is registered households (natives). From left to right are the 2000, 2010 census totals, 2000-2010 average growth, 2015 census, 2010-2015 average growth. The slowdown in non-resident population is evident:
Another group of winners and losers are those going for broke with a single megalopolis development strategy to keep youth from heading to first-tier cities.
For the Midwest, many provinces such as Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou, in the past few years, have taken to abandon small cities, give the province to build the core metropolitan area mode. When a large decline in the young population, which abandoned the vehicle and insurance handsome, rapid culture practices of mega-cities, is also an inevitable choice. Because only large metropolitan area, in order to become a gathering place for modern industrial chain and high-end services. Wuhan and Chengdu, for example, although the provinces where they face greater aging crisis, but two of the province's first high metropolis, has become a highlight of the regional development across the country in recent years, in the Midwest on industrial upgrading, at the forefront.
Other provinces which developed earlier and have multiple major cities, may be headed for trouble:
Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, all provincial capitals and coastal cities of dual-core and even multicore development typical example, Shenyang and Dalian , Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Jinan, Qingdao, Yantai, the results of multi-core development is the core of each are not competitive enough, it is difficult to attract high-end industry and population.
The conclusion:
For individuals and real estate investment configuration, based on the above analysis, need to do is:

1. Do not buy property in the county town and underdevelopmed areas —— the houses in these areas will become mostly uninhabited concrete monuments

2. Do not worry that high priced assets in the city center will depreciate in the center of the city: such as Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Hefei

3. Capital cities with high youth reserve population have a high potential: such as Guiyang, Nanchang, Nanning, Changsha

iFeng: 轻人口锐减,哪些省市还有未来?

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