Population Aging in China from a Multidimensional, Comparative Perspective

In recent years, perhaps more than any others, changes in China’s population have been under the spotlight. Issues relating to population aging and stagnation/decline have been presented as a near existential threat to the political, social, and economic future of the country. The responses to these challenges have typically revolved around seeking a ‘demographic response’—namely more babies. These responses, however, are deaf to both the challenges of family formation in contemporary China, as well as the timespan needed for such policies to affect already stressed systems and institutions. Rather, policies which reformed such stressed systems and address the lifecycle challenges and opportunities of population aging are urgently required. This requires an improved, multidimensional ‘problem definition’ as well as considering comparative approaches to facilitate policy learning. This commentary explores these issues and identifies how the papers which make up this special issue of China Population and Development Studies contribute to developing our understanding of aging from a multidimensional and comparative perspective.