ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 presents an analysis of the urbanization of population in China. Since the Reform and Opening-Up, China has experienced rapid urbanization, with huge numbers of young and middle-aged workforce coming to cities to meet the demand for labor during the development of urban areas. Studies on population in a number of large cities show a high degree of dependency on labor from other areas. This has led to an important research question: as the rural workforce migration and the low urban fertility have caused transformations in both the rural and urban population, will the past model of urbanization which relies on rural labor be sustainable? Age structures of the rural and urban population show that the working-age population in rural areas is already smaller in size than that in urban areas. Furthermore, population aging is a more serious problem in the countryside than in cities. The lack of young people in rural areas, though not yet as prevalent as in urban regions, is preventing rural areas from serving as unlimited sources of labor. Urban regions still need a large number of workers that rural areas can no longer freely provide, and this poses a serious problem. This means that low fertility in China over the years is detrimental to the development of urban areas. This also makes it more difficult to meet the rising demand for labor due to population aging.
