Working-age Population Structure and Dynamic Evolution of China’s Labor Productivity

Using China’s population census data from 1990 to 2010 and 1% sample survey data, this paper analyzed the differences between the whole China’s and the regional workforce age structures. Then, this paper introduced production function, applying the Cobb-Douglas nested with CES function into working population age structure to estimate the curve of age-labor productivity which suits China’s basic condition. The findings showed, nationally, that middle-aged workers’ marginal labor productivity rank first, with the young workers second, the old workers the last. The results of regional classification, the east, the middle and the west, declared that the middle-aged labor of the east and the midland have a high productivity and has been increasing since the last 20 years, while that of the old is close to zero. For the western region, the young and the old workforce has higher marginal labor productivity than that of the middle-aged workforce.