ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
China's low fertility may not hinder future prosperity.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed.
- Association between family health and fertility intention among women of childbearing age in China: evidence from a large multi-stage cross-sectional survey.Journal of global health · 2026Article
- China's demographic dividend has moved from age-based labor supply to skill-based productivity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Low fertility may persist and could be good for the economy.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Investments in health and mortality reduction to address population decline.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2026Article
- Modeled Burden and Trends of Infertility Among People Aged 15-49 Years in the Original BRICS Countries: Comparisons with G7 and Global Estimates, 1990-2023, with Projections to 2050.International journal of women's health · 2026Article
- Social determinants of low fertility in Asia: a comparative review of trends in East, Southeast and South Asia.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2025Review
- Comparative trends in pancreatic cancer burden and risk factors in the USA and China (1990-2021): insights from GBD analysis.BMC gastroenterology · 2025Article
- Willingness to have a third child and its determinants among childbearing-age women in Chongqing under China's three-child policy.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Temporal trends and future projections of incidence rate and mortality for asthma in China: an analysis of the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- A dataset of human capital-weighted population estimates for 185 countries from 1970 to 2100.Scientific data · 2024Article
- A reassessment of trends and rural-urban/regional differences in the total fertility rate in China, 2000-2020: analyses of the 2020 national census data.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Contemporary demographic challenges and population policies.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2024Article
- Article
- Article
- Public attitudes toward COVID-19 prevention and control in China.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Speed of aging of populations by socioeconomics subgroups in China: A cross-sectional study of cognitive performance.SSM - population health · 2023Article
- The association between childbirth-related fear, childbirth readiness, and fertility intentions, and childbirth readiness as the mediator.Reproductive health · 2023Article
- A study on the influencing factors and response strategies for young teachers from Taiwan to teach in universities in China: a push-pull-mooring model perspective.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Influence of skill relatedness on the location choice of heterogeneous labor force in Chinese prefecture-level cities.PloS one · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
China's low fertility is often presented as a major factor which will hinder its prosperity in the medium to long term. This is based on the assumed negative consequences of an increasing old-age dependency ratio: a simplistic measure of relative changing age structures. Based on this view, policies to increase fertility are being proposed after decades of birth restriction policies. Here, we argue that a purely age structure-based reasoning which disregards labor force participation and education attainment may be highly misleading. While fertility has indeed fallen to low levels, human capital accumulation has been very strong-especially among younger cohorts. Factoring in the effects of labor force participation and educational attainment on productivity, a measure called "productivity-weighted labor force dependency ratio" can more accurately capture the economic implications of demographic change. When using this ratio, a much more optimistic picture of the economic (and social) future of China can be envisaged.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.