Anyway, as the Alphas reach working age over the next decade, they will stabilize China’s demographics. China’s working-age population is actually projected to increase over the next few years, before beginning a slow decline:

As every labor economist knows, a better-educated workforce is a more productive workforce. The Chinese workers that will retire over the next quarter century — the Gen Xers and older Millennials — are not very highly educated. The workers that will replace them — the Alphas — are very highly educated. That will compensate for much of the loss of working-age population.

Between welcoming a big youth cohort, raising the retirement age, and sending a lot more kids to college, China should experience few problems from the gentle demographic headwinds of the next two and a half decades.1 Its leaders still need to worry about the long-term demographic challenge after 2050, but most of its rivals are in even worse shape.