For China, urbanization mechanically tends to reduce age-specific labor force
participation at older ages, because Chinese farmers work well into their late 60s when
they able, hardly recognizing the term “retiree.” But their labor productivity is quite low.
By contrast, a better-educated, increasingly urban workforce has grown up after the
scourges of malnutrition and disabling infectious disease have been mostly conquered.
These young people may very well work longer, enjoying lower rates of disability and
morbidity into their late 60s and even 70s. However, increased demand for leisure and
“diseases of affluence” push the other way. Which forces will predominate in the coming
decades in China? The next section considers whether China is experiencing healthy
aging, or whether longer lives portend more years spent in poor and frail health.