Jawahar Panjabi is a Hong Kong-based principal consultant, venture architect, and former business journalist and international trade controller.
A decade ago, when Beijing ended its one-child policy, demographers and economists issued a grim consensus: a rapidly shrinking workforce would cripple China’s manufacturing and export machine.
Indeed, the demographic dividend that powered China’s rise between 1980 and 2010 has run its course; from 2022, the population began contracting annually.
Yet, rather than surrendering its status as the world’s factory, China is neutralising its demographic crunch with an algorithmic dividend.