E 3.-POPULATION BY 5-YR AGE GROUPS AND SEX, ALTERNATE MODELS, FOR SELECTED YEARS: 1953-2000-Continued Absolute population totals by sex for other significant age groups. are given for selected years in table 4. The preschool and school ages as shown in this table are not the same as those that have been used in China up to now, but are taken from the new "Draft Plan for a TenYear Full-Time Teaching System for Primary and Middle Schools" recently promulgated by the Ministry of Education.113 The system is not yet fully in effect and can only be phased in gradually because it. advances the age of admission to elementary school by 1 year and that. for senior middle school by 3 years. This means that the schools must. absorb extra incoming students at the new lower age levels while still retaining students who entered under the previous system and have not completed their courses of studies. The transition will be somewhat easier at the elementary level because of the declining size of the entering cohorts. 113 "New Teaching System for Primary and Middle Schools," Peking Review, No. 8, Feb. 24, 1978, p. 15, 27-427 O-79-32 TABLE 4.-POPULATION IN FUNCTIONAL AGE GROUPS, ALTERNATE MODELS, FOR SELECTED YEARS: The new 10-year system replaces a 12-year system that consisted of 6 years of elementary and 3 years each of junior and senior middle school. In theory at least, students entered elementary school at age 7 and completed senior middle school at age 18, although in fact some students entered the system at a later age and some did not complete middle school. Under the new system, students would enter at age 6 and graduate from senior middle school at age 15; elementary and junior middle school programs are each shortened by 1 year. Advancing the age for elementary school reduces by 1 year the span of the preschool ages. According to the low model, the numbers of children of elementary school age increase until 1977, decline somewhat irregularly until 1993, and then rise gradually until the end of the century. According to the high model, their numbers rise until 1985, decline until 1993, then rise again through the year 2000. In the middle schools, a similar pattern appears but with a delay of 5 years. The total population of school age in China is shown as 127 million as of 1953 in all models but rises to 228 million in the low model and 272 in the high by 1980 and to 192 and 274 million, respectively, in the year 2000. The wide range of 82 million by the end of the century, plus or minus 17 percent around the intermediate model figure of 236 million, indicates the importance of success in birth control for the scale of educational services that will be required in the future. The working age population is assumed to include the same ages that were so designated by PRC labor force specialists in the 1950'sages 16 to 50 years for males and 16 to 55 years for females. In all models, the population in the working ages increases from 1953 through the end of the century. In 1953 all models show a working age population of 310 million. By the year 2000, the low model projects a total of 787 million and the high model 883 million, a range of only plus or minus 7 percent around the intermediate model total of 840 million. The population in the retirement ages consists of men aged 61 and over and women aged 56 and over. Their numbers increase from 35 million in 1953 to 147 million in the low model and 125 in the high model by the year 2000. Although the low figure implies more than a tripling of their numbers in the 47-year period, they still constitute a relatively small burden on the massive population of working ages, but their numbers are rising rapidly as the century ends. The dependency burden will be much greater in the 21st century. The numbers of males in the prime military ages, ages 18 to 22 years, do not give the full measure of the military manpower resources of a country that has many relatively young veterans of military service now in civilian life who could be recalled in case of need, a considerable force of militia organized and available for at least paramilitary duty, and a number of young women with military training. The males in the prime military ages alone reach about 50 million in 1980 according to these projections and 52 to 73 million by the year 2000. What are referred to in table 4 as the "prime fertility ages" for women, ages 23 to 35, begin with the minimum target age at marriage for women in rural areas and end with an age at which, if the twochild per family limit can be made obligatory, most childbearing would be over in both urban and rural areas. The women in these ages are presumably the prime objects of family planning propaganda and the prime candidates for sterilization. In 1953 they are estimated to have totaled only 57 million, but by 1980 their numbers are projected to reach 102 to 104 million and by the year 2000 from 142 to 170 million. The annual incoming cohorts at age 23 are under 10 million in 1980 but increase to 11 to 15 million by 2000. GENERAL IMPLICATIONS If China's demographic prospects fall within the range indicated by the low and high model projections presented here, it is obvious that there are significant differences between the two extremes by the year 2000. The size of the totals varies by about 17 percent of the mean value and the annual population growth rates range from 1.1 percent to 1.7 percent. However, either of these rates is sufficient to give continuing cause for concern in a country with finite resources at an early stage of economic development with an already large population. The pressure of population growth on the growth of food production may not be greatly reduced by the anticipated decline in natural increase rates if the expedients used to increase agricultural output yield diminishing returns. Unless the economy is more immune in the future than it has been in the past to political dislocations, population growth will continue to dissipate a significant portion of the gains from economic growth. The difficulties of funding productive employment for large increments to the labor force while mechanizing labor in both the nonagricultural and agricultural sectors will continue without much relief from demographic change before 1990. Hence even the rather spectacular shifts in fertility projected for these models during the next few years do not portend an immediate and radical remission in the problems that have hitherto been posed by population growth in the PRC. The possibility of radical shifts in demographic prospects cannot be ruled out absolutely. Although the prospect seems highly unlikely, it is not altogether inconceivable that the PRC might be able to achieve a degree of control over civil affairs that would make zero population growth possible in the near future, although it might mean mandating the one-child family or denying parenthood to a large segment of the population for a generation. There is also the possibility of a catastrophic depletion of the population resulting from either a man-made or a natural disaster. The PRC leaders themselves have from time to time entertained the idea of a massive slaughter of their population in a war with the Soviet Union. An acute political upheaval or a deterioration in civil order could disrupt the rural economy enough to bring on a serious famine. Lesser but still demographically significant disturbances have occurred since 1949 as a result of political adventures that miscarried or recurrent adverse weather conditions, and there can be no guarantees that neither will happen again in the future. However, the extreme possibilities do not seem very likely. The most plausible expectation as to the demographic future of the PRC is for a continuing decline in the rate of population growth in the next decade until a certain minimum level is achieved, after which the population will continue to grow to the end of the century at rates that fluctuate with specific political and social developments that cannot be wholly anticipated and with changes in age composition that are already largely determined. |