A Study on the Impact of China’s Demographic Structure on Human Capital Accumulation—Based on a Panel Data Model

With the development of the times, the role of human capital in economic growth has been highlighted. However, in the current academic world, the research on the topic of demographic structure and human capital accumulation is not closely integrated. China is now in a period of economic transformation and upgrading, and it is urgent to change the traditional economic growth model, increase human capital investment, and cultivate new growth momentum. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of China’s population structure on human capital accumulation by constructing a mathematical model based on relevant panel data of 31 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) from 2001 to 2020. The empirical results show that human capital accumulation in China has a certain lagging effect, while population age and urban-rural structure enhance human capital accumulation in both quantitative and qualitative terms, respectively. In addition, industrial transformation, economic growth level, and per capita income all have significant positive effects. The effect of education, on the other hand, is not significant, while the interaction between urbanization and industrial structure may hurt it. Based on this, this paper proposes targeted countermeasures and suggestions in terms of fully developing the population quality dividend, fully tapping the talent knowledge dividend, continuously improving the health dividend, and continually tapping the aging dividend.