Efforts should be made to advance Chinese modernization supported by high-quality development of the population, said a key meeting held Friday by the top decision body. Experts believe this sends a message that China's economic model will shift from 'quantity of labor' to 'quality of labor'.

China is currently experiencing a trend of birthrate decline, population aging, and differentiation in regional population growth, as reported at the first meeting of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs (CCFEA) under the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee on Friday.

In January of this year, government data confirmed the first population decline in about six decades, with the birth rate at a record low in 2022.

"Population aging will bring certain challenges to economic development. Solving this problem is also one of the important factors for national competitiveness and sustainable development," Jimmy Zhu, chief strategist at Fullerton Research, told CGTN on Sunday.

Friday's CCFEA meeting stressed that the country will speed up the development of modern human resources with good quality, sufficient quantity, optimized structure, and reasonable distribution so that Chinese modernization will be advanced with support from the high-quality development of the population.

Mao Zhuoyan, professor at Capital University of Economics and Business, concluded in an interview with 21st Century Business Herald that there are three points worth paying attention to at the meeting: first, improving the population structure; second, promoting the quality of the population; and third, advancing Chinese modernization with support from the high-quality development of the population.

As such, Zhu predicted that future policies will aim to improve the quality of education, cultivate high-quality talents with technological innovation and practical capabilities, accelerate industrial transformation and upgrading, develop emerging industries, strengthen regional coordinated development, realize population mobility, and even distribution of employment opportunities.

China's total labor force is still very large, although China faces an aging population, shrinking labor force, and increasing labor scarcity, Yuan Xin, vice-president of the China Population Association and professor of Demography at Nankai University in Tianjin told Cailian Press.

China's working-age population – those between 16 and 59 years old – stood at 875.56 million at the end of 2022. Even if China's working-age population is predicted to decrease to 650 million by 2050, it is still more than the combined population of developed countries in the whole world, Yuan said.

As this trend is irreversible, Yuan noted that demand for the quantity of labor will be partially replaced by the quality of labor, and in the future, China will rely on innovation, technological progress, and digitalization to improve labor productivity.