At current PRC STEM / skilled labour production rate, they're on trend to generate 50-100M new skilled workers in the next 20 years. Those are growing bodies already born and accounted for. That's multiple times more than US is set to gain in people via all methods birth/immigration. In the next few years, PRC will have more skilled talent IN WORKFORCE than US in absolute numbers. It's exactly beause relative skill across workforce is still low, currently 20% vs developed countries for 60-80% that PRC has incredible skilled demographic divident to squeeze. It's how JP/SKR GDP doubled/tripled after TFR crash 20 years ago, by training up new generations into more skilled/productive work. Hence PRC similarly marching to advanced economy workforce composition is - objectively the greatest concentration in high skilled talent within one coordinated system in human history. Even at lower relative % of skilled workforce, due to PRC population denominator, that means PRC will have significantly more aggregate knowledge/skill/connection than any other competitor.
PRC broad unemployment rate is 5%, youth find jobs within a few years. Right now you have massive cohorts of new graduates post academic expansion who don't want to settle for jobs they think are beneath them, but eventually, like all humans, they will. It's going to take a few years because PRC kids have no crippling student debt, can mooch off parents living at home, and don't need to work 2 part time jobs to make ends meet. Even if 40% of youth unemployemnt was durable, implying 40% of PRC skilled workforce end up not working, which is an idiotic hopium position to draw analysis from, the remaining 60% is still MORE aggregate skill pool than again, any other competitor, at any time in past or projected future in next 30-50 years. Which if you care about geopolitical balance/stragetic competition, is the cohort and period worth considering.
There's no credible model where PRC population will dip to 600M in 2050.
On poverty: there's 600M, on 1000rmb disposable household income, 900m on 2000rmb. That again, that's precisely why they don't matter for growth. That 60% of population constitutes merely 10% of GDP. Most of GDP/productivity in advanced/modern economy driven by the minority of skilled workforce. In PRC case, the minority in developed tier1/2 regions. The same cohort responsible for 90% of the GDP is set to increase by order of magnitude within the next 20 years. They're the real growth drivers. That growth will trickle down so the bottom 60% can eventually charge 10rmb for a haircut instead of 5rmb and live on 2000/4000rmb instead of 1000/2000, but ultimately their contribution to development is/was always going to be marginal. You don't need everyone to be high skilled, and with PRC population, modernization timeframe, they couldn't. But going forward they can certainly have more absolute/aggregate skilled labour than US+partners, and still have a few 100 million stuck in informal economy doing shit all. And right now that's where impactful demographic trend is heading.
> generate 50-100M new skilled workers in the next 20 years
You're overestimating the impact since
1.) 80% of the top minds will study abroad and stay there, not in China, like they are now. More smart people are realizing if they live in a freedom-less dictatorship, being just a chive to be cut down, they are better to move. When they see their hero Jack Ma was imprisoned and stripped of power. When they hear their hero Ma Huateng of Tencent actively proclaiming one should not attract attention and to lower profile
2.) rote studying + cheating culture + mandatory Xi Jing Ping learning for 3 hours every day for these workers in college make them inferior workers than workers in the West. Chinese colleges are already not as good as Western colleges to start with.
3.) when these skilled workers graduate and can't find jobs, much like now when tsinghua graduates are forced to become didi drivers, they won't be able to learn the actual skills to contribute, since college learnings are just that, college learnings.
4.) US can get skilled immigrations from around the world, and can ramp up whenever they want. They also have skilled partners like Europe, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea to work with
> settle for jobs they think are beneath them, but eventually, like all humans, they will
Yes, these new college grads now are driving for didi and delivering for meituan, which they will continue to do for 20 years. There is no magic bullet to turn an event like Great Depression around
> There's no credible model where PRC population will dip to 600M in 2050
There are many, but first you have to not buy China's word that it has 1.4B to start with. (why would you when they still proclaim 5% GDP growth in 2023) Many guesses are 1.2B, before all the unreported covid related deaths
1) Subtantially less (like single digit %) PRC tier1 talent are leaving now, and more skilled talent are flowing back from west to PRC due to better opportunities. Record number in last few years. What you're seeing is some old wealth, accumulated in PRC at time when you didn't need high skill talent, capital flighting. And a bunch of low skilled migrants trying to enter from south America to flip burgers. This isn't the 2000s where best of best PRC goes abroad, some do, but largely it's the extra mediocre/dumb who can't hack Chinese gaokao. This isn't diasphora from 90s where every Chinese group has friends who were like top10 from their province. The common story now is my kid too dumb/fragile to survive PRC tertiary, lets send them abroad. Which relates back to old wealth fleeing, a lot of rich peasants who guanxied their way into wealth and know their kids aren't smart enough to do well in PRC but maybe can coast in west where talent pool is shallow. Like this
2) Except they're climbing/leading science/innovation indexes in west controlled for quality. As if university in the west don't have retarded waste of time rereqs. No one is learning XJP app for 3 hours a day. They're studying their courses and farming primogems.
3) Yeah they're going to spend years bumming a round while job creation meet talent creation, which is expected artefact of PRC overcapacity. That'll sort itself out in a a few years. Supply/demand etc. The important point being, right now there are host of significant, strategic industries where there's lots of demand and having excess talent is net good, i.e. PRC is basically the only country on trend to not have talent shortage in semiconductors in 5 years. And guess what happens when there's extra demand, companies take and retrain less qualified applicants. It's better to have a pool of STEM taxi drivers who can skill work because you know they were filtered by tertiary system than the west who has excess demand for skill work, and taxi drivers who can't.
4) Now break down the numbers. US has access to global talent, but what US actually has access is 400M english speakers, 600m with some english proficency, from a few countries with skill development. And guess who they have overwhelmingly chose in the last 10-15 years. PRC talent, that they are now making harder to brain drain due to domestic policies. Meanwhile, PRC has 900m mandarin speakers, but realistically like US, the subsect of viable tertiary talent is much lower. But PRC talent bias skill/technical work, vs gender studies and has much bigger pool for high skill work. Meanwhile, they've been retaining significantly more talent due to more opportunities, and frankly produce so much that US/west can't even brain drain enough to make a dent, assuming US/PRC domestic politics allows prior levesl of brain drain. US has access to "more" talent, but realistically can only takein/incorporate so much. Meanwhile PRC has access to MORE talent, more than US can ever take, including top end.
Very few are skilled youths driving did/meituan. Some do, but youth umemployment stats concenrates low skill. Credentialled youth and taking their time job seeking, looking into teaching/government, and eventually will settled into bluecollar work that pays better than delivery work if they can stomach the shame. Broke, medicore skilled youth, the C students are desperate enough to do low end work. If you're an A level talent, you're already working sometime nice. No so different from advanced economies as they deal with academic inflation.
Conspiracy/FLG/and that one professor guess 1.2B. Which doesn't even matter since output of PRC exports and value chain can be measured by proxy. That 1.2B is consuming resources for previous 1.4B, and living 10% better. It's fine. And as if PRC having 200M less mouth to feed and fuel is actually a problem. Meanwhile commodity imports and energy increase trend is clear and can't be systematically fudged over timescale. Dang's not going to be happy if I interrogate every luny claim on PRC. Suffice to say, PRC skilled demographic boom, and ability to to coordinate them is so large, that they have large advantage even if you think they're fudged by double digit percentages.
At current PRC STEM / skilled labour production rate, they're on trend to generate 50-100M new skilled workers in the next 20 years. Those are growing bodies already born and accounted for. That's multiple times more than US is set to gain in people via all methods birth/immigration. In the next few years, PRC will have more skilled talent IN WORKFORCE than US in absolute numbers. It's exactly beause relative skill across workforce is still low, currently 20% vs developed countries for 60-80% that PRC has incredible skilled demographic divident to squeeze. It's how JP/SKR GDP doubled/tripled after TFR crash 20 years ago, by training up new generations into more skilled/productive work. Hence PRC similarly marching to advanced economy workforce composition is - objectively the greatest concentration in high skilled talent within one coordinated system in human history. Even at lower relative % of skilled workforce, due to PRC population denominator, that means PRC will have significantly more aggregate knowledge/skill/connection than any other competitor.
PRC broad unemployment rate is 5%, youth find jobs within a few years. Right now you have massive cohorts of new graduates post academic expansion who don't want to settle for jobs they think are beneath them, but eventually, like all humans, they will. It's going to take a few years because PRC kids have no crippling student debt, can mooch off parents living at home, and don't need to work 2 part time jobs to make ends meet. Even if 40% of youth unemployemnt was durable, implying 40% of PRC skilled workforce end up not working, which is an idiotic hopium position to draw analysis from, the remaining 60% is still MORE aggregate skill pool than again, any other competitor, at any time in past or projected future in next 30-50 years. Which if you care about geopolitical balance/stragetic competition, is the cohort and period worth considering.
There's no credible model where PRC population will dip to 600M in 2050.
On poverty: there's 600M, on 1000rmb disposable household income, 900m on 2000rmb. That again, that's precisely why they don't matter for growth. That 60% of population constitutes merely 10% of GDP. Most of GDP/productivity in advanced/modern economy driven by the minority of skilled workforce. In PRC case, the minority in developed tier1/2 regions. The same cohort responsible for 90% of the GDP is set to increase by order of magnitude within the next 20 years. They're the real growth drivers. That growth will trickle down so the bottom 60% can eventually charge 10rmb for a haircut instead of 5rmb and live on 2000/4000rmb instead of 1000/2000, but ultimately their contribution to development is/was always going to be marginal. You don't need everyone to be high skilled, and with PRC population, modernization timeframe, they couldn't. But going forward they can certainly have more absolute/aggregate skilled labour than US+partners, and still have a few 100 million stuck in informal economy doing shit all. And right now that's where impactful demographic trend is heading.