Resources, Conservation & Recycling 133 (2018) 242–249

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Resources, Conservation & Recycling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec

Full length article

How does demographic structure affect environmental quality? Empirical T

evidence from China
⁎,1
Zongyong Zhanga,f,1, Yu Haoa,b,c,d,e, , Zhi-Nan Lug,h,1, Yuxin Denga
a
School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China
b
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China
c
Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Beijing, Beijing, 100081, China
d
Collaborative Innovation Center of Electric Vehicles in Beijing, Beijing, 100081, China
e
Beijing Key Lab of Energy Economics and Environmental Management, Beijing, 100081, China
f
Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK
g
Thrombosis and Vascular Medicine Center, State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease, Fuwai Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union
Medical College, Beijing, 100037, China
h
Cardiology Department, Centro Hospitalar Conde de São Januário, Macao, 999078, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: China is currently at a crossroads with an aging population and steadily decreasing economic growth rates. In
Demographic change this context, China’s demographic policy may impact environmental quality through changes in energy usage
Environmental quality and the demographic influences on economic development. Using panel data from 29 Chinese provinces for the
CO2 emissions period between 1995 and 2012, this study explores the relationship between the demographic structure and
Provincial panel data
environmental quality in China. To accurately examine this relationship, the total effect is further divided into
China
direct effect and indirect effect, which functions in an indirect way through the influences of demographic
changes on economic growth. A comprehensive framework composed of a carefully designed two-stage re-
gression model is employed to estimate both the direct and indirect effects of demographic changes on CO2
emissions. The generalized method of moments (GMM) method is used to control for potential endogeneity and
introduce dynamics. The empirical results indicate that the direct effect of the share of the working-age popu-
lation on CO2 emissions is positive, while the indirect effect depends on the specific level of GDP per capita
because there is evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between CO2 emissions and GDP per capita. At
the current stage of economic development, the total effect is positively associated with the share of the working-
age population. Therefore, an aging society, although detrimental to economic development over the long term,
might objectively alleviate China’s environmental pressures to some extent.

1. Introduction and vowed to attempt to achieve this goal earlier. Concomitantly,

Currently, China's economy has entered the phase of “new normal,
which means the economic growth rate will decrease considerably from
its prior breakneck speed to a moderately high level.2 During this
period, the transition of China’s economic structure has progressed
rapidly. Meanwhile, energy and environmental pressures continue to
increase, as China’s emissions of various pollutants and greenhouse
gases (GHG, especially carbon dioxide or CO2) seem to have no peers
worldwide. To relieve these pressures, China made a solemn promise at
the 2014 APEC meeting to reach a peak of carbon emissions by 2030
China's age structure (juvenile, adult, or aging type) is also changing
profoundly, as evidenced by a low fertility rate, a booming senior po-
pulation, and a decreasing labor force (Golley and Zheng, 2015). For
example, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the share
of the population aged 0–14 steadily declined from 22.9% in
2000–16.6% in 2010; conversely, the share of the population older than
65 increased from 7.0% to 8.9% in this period. However, the working-
age labor force (15–64 years old) has stopped increasing. Confronted by
these changes, Beijing further eased the one-child policy that persisted
for more than three decades, and implemented a universal two-child

⁎
Corresponding author at: School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, 100081, China.
E-mail addresses: zongyong8090@163.com (Z. Zhang), haoyuking@bit.edu.cn (Y. Hao), lzn1982hy@163.com (Z.-N. Lu), dyx9404@163.com (Y. Deng).
1
These authors contributed equally to this study and share first authorship.
2
For more information and discussions about China’s “new normal”, see http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34344926 and https://www.ft.com/content/28ea640e-ef62-11e5-aff5-
19b4e253664a?mhq5j=e1.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.02.017
Received 4 November 2017; Received in revised form 14 February 2018; Accepted 14 February 2018
0921-3449/ © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Z. Zhang et al.
policy on October 29, 2015. This policy could be regarded as a mod-
erate amendment of the strict one-child policy. According to the Na-
tional Health and Family Planning Commission, the two-child policy
will add 30 million people to the labor supply by 20503
Fig. 1 simultaneously depicts the China's working-age population
share, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions from 1995 to 2012. The
growth rates of the three variables follow a similar trend, rising from 1995
to the mid–2000 s (although to different degrees) and declining afterward.
Although this observation is not remarkable, the general trend is obvious:
the working-age population may be closely related to CO2 emissions
through economic development and changes in energy consumption. It is
also noteworthy that in recent years (especially after 2011), the growth
rates of China’s CO2 emissions have obviously decreased, although total
energy consumption continued to grow at a relatively robust pace. As
Green and Stern (2017) summarized, a recent slowdown in China’s CO2
emissions was likely caused by improvements in the energy mix (i.e., an
increase in the share of renewable energy and a reduction in the use of
coal; Ye et al., 2017), the enhancement of energy efficiency, and the
transformation of China’s economic structure. As demonstrated by many
early studies that population growth leads to increased environmental
pressure (O'Neill et al., 2012; York, 2007; Wei and Hao, 2010), the uni-
versal two-child policy may add considerable pressure to China's energy
consumption and environmental quality.4
Will China's environmental quality be influenced by this age struc-
ture change or not? This question still needs to be answered due to few
studies in this field, especially in terms of possible mechanisms.
Generally speaking, a decrease in the child dependency ratio5 in a
3
This statement is from a news briefing by the National Health and Family
Planning Commission on November 10, 2015. More details (in Chinese) are available at
http://news.dichan.sina.com.cn/2015/11/12/1137610.html, http://finance.sina.com.
cn/China/20151030/132923631748.shtml, and http://theory.people.com.cn/n/2015/
1130/c40531-27870229.html
4
Except for the age structure, the absolute amount of population also influences eco-
nomic growth and environmental quality. For example, the process of population growth
may have a positive impact on development because of economies of scale (Liu and Hu,
2013). In other words, as noted by Peng (2011), sustained population growth will in-
evitably exert a significant impact on China's pollution problems. Some studies also
emphasized the effects of a high population density because a crowded population usually
puts pressure on resources and the environment (Liu and Hu, 2013).
5
The dependency ratio refers to the ratio of youth, children, and the aged to the total
population (aged 15–64). The terms “youth” and “children” refer to those younger than
14, while “the aged” refers those over 65. Based on these definitions, the child de-
pendency ratio is the average number of children raised by one couple.
243
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 133 (2018) 242–249
Fig. 1. Depiction of China's working-age population
proportion, energy consumption, carbon dioxide
emissions, and corresponding annual-growth rates,
1995–2014.
Notes: The data on the working-age population were
compiled from the China Statistics Yearbooks (var-
ious years). The data on national energy consump-
tion were collected from China Energy Statistical
Yearbooks (various years). The data on China’s na-
tional CO2 emissions were obtained from the PBL
Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (ac-
cessed at http://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/trends-
in-global-co2-emissions-2014-report and http://
infographics.pbl.nl/website/globalco2-2015/). The
annual-growth rates of the indicators were calculated
by the authors.
community is seen as an alleviation of the labor burden in the age
structure because this leads to a ‘structural dividend,’ which means that
affluent labor resources improve the economy, the so-called demo-
graphic dividend,6 as has been the case with China’s development.
However, this advantage seems to have already been gradually ex-
hausted as indicated by the age structure data above, and as found in
recent studies such as Zhong et al. (2013). Therefore, to mitigate the
pressure to reduce GHG emissions and maintain moderately high
growth, China needs to take full advantage of the demographic divi-
dend during the age structure changes and avoid possible adverse ef-
fects on its economy and environment. This paper investigates the re-
lationship between the age structure and environmental quality in
China to help optimize the population structure and reduce GHG
emissions in this major global economy.
In this regard, the contribution of this study is twofold. First, this
paper for the first time focuses on the relationship between the aging
population and energy consumption-related emissions in China.
Second, the direct and indirect effects of demographic changes on en-
vironmental quality are distinguished and examined using a well-de-
signed two-stage regression model. Moreover, the generalized method
of moments (GMM) method is utilized to control for potential en-
dogeneity. As a result, the estimation results of this study could provide
important and meaningful policy implications to corresponding policy
makers to cooperate and coordinate population policies and environ-
mental regulations.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows: The second section
contains a brief literature review of relevant studies. The third section
introduces the method and data utilized in this study. The fourth sec-
tion presents the main estimation results and corresponding discus-
sions. The fifth section concludes the study and presents policy im-
plications. Finally, the last section summarizes the main limitations of
this study and provides possible future research directions.
6
In addition, according to previous studies on the impact of population changes on
economic development, there is another reason for a population dividend except for the
decline in social dependency. This is the changes in the new saving motivation, referred
to by some scholars as a "second demographic dividend" (Mason and Lee, 2006; Wang and
Mason, 2007; Cai, 2010; Lee and Mason, 2010). In other words, along with increasing life
expectancy and the aggravation population aging, people are motivated to save for their
quality of life in their senior years and accumulate more assets during their working
years, which may also be conducive to economic growth. However, investigating the
mechanism of the second demographic dividend is beyond the scope of this paper.
Z. Zhang et al.
2. Literature review
The existing literature concluded whether the age structure of an
economy is juvenile, adult, or aging is closely related to its energy
consumption and environmental pollution. However, the relationship
between the age structure and emissions seemed to be mixed and did
not arrive at a conclusion because there are both direct and indirect
interactions between the age structure and energy consumption-related
emissions. For example, Yamasaki and Tominaga (1997) found that
aging has a direct impact on energy consumption because energy
consumption usually varies considerably within an individual’s life
cycle. Dalton et al. (2007) demonstrated that by 2100, the older po-
pulation will decrease China's carbon emissions and the net effect of
demographic changes (together with urbanization) will increase emis-
sions by 45%. Kronenberg (2011) found a significant correlation be-
tween GDP growth and pollution emissions, and revealed that energy
consumption and pollution emissions decline with aging. Garau et al.
(2013) found that although population aging often leads to intensive
energy production and energy use, as a whole it will reduce energy
consumption.
One reason for the disparity between the impacts of the age struc-
ture is that there are both direct and indirect effects on energy con-
sumption and environmental quality. First, as Kronenberg (2009) and
Hamza and Gilroy (2011) pointed out, there is significant heterogeneity
in the energy consumption behaviors of the elderly and the young, for
instance, in the differences in attitudes toward environmental protec-
tion, because these factors directly affect energy consumption and en-
vironmental quality. Thus the direct impact of the age structure may be
caused by changes in energy consumption behaviors and habits, re-
sulting in different levels of energy consumption and structures.
Second, because the age structure also affects energy consumption and
environmental pollution by influencing an array of mediating variables
(such as economic growth and industrial structure), thus an indirect
effect refers to the impacts working through the transmission of these
mediating variables. Specifically, the existing literature on these two
issues can be summarized as follows.
2.1. The direct effect of age structure on environmental quality
An increasing amount of literature has investigated the significant
differences in the energy consumption patterns or habits of the elderly
and the young.7 For example, Hamza and Gilroy (2011) found that with
an increase in the income of the “baby boom” population in the United
States, young people have more preference for travel and durable
goods, which often lead to greater carbon emissions. In contrast, the
consumption behaviors of the aged population tend to produce rela-
tively less carbon emissions. Because of the counterbalance between
these two different patterns, the total carbon emissions might change.
Thus, the direct impacts of the age structure mean that aging results in
changes in energy consumption behaviors and possible changes in at-
titudes toward environmental protection and thus directly affect the
energy consumption and environmental quality at a given income level.
As for the dataset, most of the previous studies utilized national data,
while provincial data has rarely been employed.
2.2. The indirect effect of age structure on environmental quality
The indirect effect of the age structure on environmental quality
functions through changes in economic development (per capita in-
come levels) and the interaction between economic development and
pollution. The existing literature indicates that the age structure would
7
For instance, households with children or retired people may have higher energy
consumption than those without. Thus, the occupants’ ages may be an important factor
that quantitatively explains the change in household energy consumption.
244
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 133 (2018) 242–249
affect economic growth and thus influence energy consumption and
pollution emissions, which will be further discussed in following
Subsection 2.2.1. In other words, the indirect effects work through the
changes in economic growth and the interaction between economic
development and pollution emissions.
2.2.1. The impact of age structure on economic growth
Many studies have reported that different age structures of the po-
pulation (or an increase in the total proportion of working-age people)
have a significant impact on economic growth. Bloom and Williamson
(1998) observed the remarkable effects of economic growth on changes
in the working-age population caused by population migration. Bloom
and Finlay (2009) found that changes in the age structure of the po-
pulation were dynamic and drastic during East Asia's economic ex-
pansion, and the aging population had an adverse effect on economic
growth. Wei and Hao (2010) examined the impacts of China’s age
structure of the labor force on economic growth at a provincial level.
They found that the decline in the proportion of the working-age po-
pulation caused by low birth rates since 1989 was conducive to China's
economic development and that the more open the labor market is, the
more significant this promotion effect would appear. Golley and Tyers
(2013) analyzed the relationship between population structural
changes and economic growth in China using different birth rates. Liu
and Hu (2013) found that a greater share of working-age population
leads to faster economic growth. Zhang et al. (2015a,b) demonstrated
in a recent study that the internal population composition and age
structure of the working-age population may directly relate to rates of
income growth. They further forecast that significant changes in the age
structure of China's population (which is partly reflected by the current
stagnation in the labor force growth) may have a profound impact on
China’s economic growth. They also stressed that such an impact would
transmit into energy consumption demand and environmental quality.
In sum, there has been a large body of literature demonstrating the
importance of the age structure (including labor force structure) for
economic growth and economic structural changes (Wei and Hao,
2010; Zhang and Xu, 2012; Liu and Hu, 2013). The extant studies in-
vestigating the influences of demographic structural changes on eco-
nomic growth could be broadly classified into three categories on the
basis of the mechanisms of the effects: (1) social security payments
(Lindh and Malmberg, 1999), (2) labor shortages (Faruqee and
Mühleisen, 2003), (3) the aging of the labor force and related changes
in human capital investment (Futagami and Nakajima, 2002), and (4)
the increase in the dependency burden of labor (i.e., the child de-
pendency ratio) and the “demographic dividend” derived from a low
dependency ratio (MacKellar and Ermolieva, 2004).
2.2.2. The impact of economic growth on energy consumption and
environmental quality
Many studies have shown that economic growth and economic
structural transformations may impact energy consumption and en-
vironmental quality, among which the environmental Kuznets curve
(EKC) is an important framework frequently used in empirical analysis.
First proposed by Grossman and Krueger (1991), the EKC is an
empirical hypothesis stating that environmental pollution and eco-
nomic development present an inverted U-shaped curve: at an early
stage of economic development, pollution increases along with rising
GDP per capita, then pollution peaks and starts to decrease once a
certain level of economic development is achieved. Many studies have
specifically focused on the EKC relationship between energy con-
sumption and economic development (Suri and Chapman, 1998; Zhang
et al., 2015a,b). Most literature on EKC examines the existence of these
inverted U-shaped relationships between various kinds of pollutant
emissions and GDP per capita (Auffhammer and Carson, 2008; Song
et al., 2008; You, 2013). However, as Stern (2004) and Dinda (2004)
pointed out, due to differences in the data and a series of problems with
the regression methods used, the results of different EKC-related
Z. Zhang et al.
empirical studies vary significantly, and some conclusions are even
biased or erroneous. In addition, the theoretical explanations for the
EKC remain scarce. As Stefanski (2010) clearly stressed, when dis-
cussing pollution problems, it may be inappropriate to attribute all of
their causes to economic growth. As a result, in the empirical research,
especially when the EKC framework is utilized, it is necessary to in-
corporate the impacts of other factors, including demographic changes
and economic restructuring, on environmental quality. In this regard,
this study tries to introduce the share of working-age population as an
important factor of the environment into empirical analysis to explore
the impacts of demographic changes.
Despite the growing amount of literature, research gaps remain in
previous studies. For instance, there is no research focusing on the re-
lationship between an aging population and energy consumption-re-
lated emissions in China. Moreover, most of the previous studies in
general merely investigated the impact of a certain aspect of the de-
mographic structure on the environment or economic development.
Research that systemically examines both the direct and indirect effects
of population characteristics on environmental quality is very scarce. As
a result, this study for the first time contributes to the existing literature
by examining the relationship between an aging population and energy
consumption-related emissions in China. The mechanism behind this
relationship is explored by considering both the direct and indirect
effects of the demographic structure on the environment using a sui-
table empirical framework. Moreover, as the population is aging in
China, the government has begun to loosen demographic regulations on
family planning and birth control. The change in demographic policy
will have medium- and long-term effects on the environmental. As such,
to fully and comprehensively understand the environmental impacts of
demographic structures will help policy makers formulate reasonable
and coordinated demographic policies and environmental protection
plans.
3. Data and methodology
Some theoretical concepts should be clarified before the metho-
dology and data utilized in this study are introduced. Specifically, be-
cause this paper distinguishes and separately estimates the direct and
indirect effects of the demographic structure on environmental quality,
the two effects are explained as follows: The direct effect means the
direct influence of the demographic structure on the environment,
which may be caused by changes in living habits and preferences when
the demographic structure is altered (senior citizens may have higher
demand for heating and cooling and lower demand for travel). In
contrast, the indirect effect refers to the indirect impact of the demo-
graphic structure on the environment through its effects on economic
development, given that there may be a nonlinear EKC relationship
between environmental quality and economic development.
In this study, the share of the working-age population (15–64 years
old) was used to describe the population structure for the following
reasons: (1) Zhang et al. (2015a,b) and Golley and Zheng (2015) argued
that the share of the working-age population can accurately reflect the
proportional relationship between the working-age and the dependent
population. (2) As Peng (2011) and Liu and Hu (2013) found, studying
the impacts of an aging population without taking into account the
working-age population often leads to biased results.8 One possible
reason is that the change in the population's age structure is an im-
portant driving force for China's economic growth.
Following previous literature on the EKC, GDP per capita was uti-
lized to represent the economic development level. Following Bloom
8
This refers to the regional demographic age composition and dependent ratio. Data
were obtained from the national sample survey on population changes. The sampling
fraction was approximately 1.04%. Because the China Statistical Yearbook 2002 did not
report these data, we used the average of the corresponding data in 2000, 2001, 2003,
and 2004 as the representative data.
245
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 133 (2018) 242–249
and Finlay (2009) and Bloom et al. (2010), trade openness, measured
by the ratio of the total import and export value to GDP, was in-
corporated to reflect the impact of foreign trade. Because the accu-
mulation of capital stock was generally considered a key contributor to
China’s economic growth after the reforms initiated in the late 1970s
(Chow and Lin, 2002), the capital stock per capita was also introduced
to control for its impact on GDP per capita. According to recent studies
such as Hao et al. (2016) and Dong et al. (2018), the proportion of the
second industry output value, population density and the urbanization
rate, are also important factors in carbon emission. Therefore, these
variables were also incorporated into the regression equations.
The data utilized in this study were compiled from the China
Statistical Yearbook (various years) and the China Compendium of
Statistics 1949–2008.9 Age composition data were obtained from the
Sample Survey on Population Changes in related years. The sample
proportion (sampling fraction) was from 0.988% (from 2002 and on-
ward) to 1.04% (in 1995).10 As a summary, the descriptive statistics of
each variable are shown in Table 1.
As discussed in the literature review section, previous studies on
demographic characteristics and the environment generally focused on
the direct effect and ignored the indirect effect. This study makes a
preliminary and comprehensive estimation of both the direct and in-
direct effects at the same time. Following Welsch (2004), Cole (2007),
and Halkos and Paizanos (2013),11 the regression model in this paper
was set as follows:
lnGDPperci,t = α + β0 ln GDPperci,t−1 + β1swapi,t + β2kperci,t + β3tradei,t
+ ηi + μi,t (1)
ln (CO2 perci, t ) = α + β4 ln (CO2 perci, t − 1) + β5 swapi, t + β6 ElnGDPperci, t
+ β7 ElnGDPperci, t 2 + β8 X + λi + ϵi, t (2)
Eq. (1) is essentially a production function that has been frequently
utilized in many classical economic growth studies such as Solow
(1956). Eq. (2) is based on the conventional EKC hypothesis that the
relationship between CO2 emissions and economic development is an
inverted U shape; therefore, the GDP per capita and its squared term are
introduced as explanatory variables. It should be noted that the GDP
per capita in Eq. (2) is the fitted value obtained through Eq. (1)
(ElnGDPperc) rather than the actual value. This is intended to separate
the net effect of the population's age structure on carbon emissions,
following Cole (2007) and Halkos and Paizanos (2013). The main ad-
vantage of utilizing this empirical framework is to distinguish the direct
and indirect effects of the demographic structure on environmental
quality and to obtain the pure direct effect through the appropriate
estimation techniques.
In Eq. (2), X is a vector that contains a series of control variables
that may affect CO2 emissions, including the industrial structure (se-
cind), urbanization rate (urb), trade openness (trade), and population
9
Because there are no official statistics for China’s provincial CO2 emissions, the data
concerning provincial CO2 emissions were calculated by the authors. Concretely, the
majority of China’s CO2 emissions are from fossil energy combustion and cement pro-
duction, so the total emissions are the sum of the emissions from these two sources. The
CO2 emissions generated from fossil energy combustion are calculated following the
suggestions of IPCC (2006) by estimating the emissions from different types of fossil
energy and adding them together. The emissions produced during cement production are
calculated by multiplying the cement output with the corresponding coefficients of the
CO2 emissions. One could also refer to Hao and Wei (2015) for more details on the
concrete estimation methods and results.
10
As an anonymous reviewer pointed out, the growth of renewable energy in China is
an important factor that could partly explain the slowdown in the increase in CO2
emissions in recent years. However, although statistics on renewable energy at the na-
tional level are available, the province-level data on renewable energy (the absolute
amount or ratio to total energy consumption) are still unavailable or incomplete, espe-
cially for some central and western provinces (e.g., Hubei, Hunan, and Gansu). Therefore,
in this study, the energy mix change is not considered in the empirical estimations.
11
This approach was initially applied extensively to the theoretical modeling of the
relationship between corruption and pollution.
Z. Zhang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 133 (2018) 242–249

Table 1
Descriptive statistics of the variables used in this study.

Variable Meaning Obs. Min. Max. Mean Standard deviation

CO2perc Per capita CO2 emissions (kg per capita) 522 873.27 26287.15 4764 3361.90
swap The share of the working-age population 522 0.60 0.84 0.71 0.04
GDPperc Per capita GDP (yuan, in 1978 constant price) 522 575.81 30104.70 4654 4356.37
trade Trade openness 522 0.03 12.05 0.34 0.65
kperc Per capita capital stock (yuan, in 1978 constant prices) 522 1676.13 98810.26 15950 15319.31
secind The proportion of the second industry output value 522 0.20 0.59 0.45 0.08
popd Population density (person/km2) 522 6.67 3827.67 401 551.16
urb The urbanization rate 522 0.14 0.89 0.43 16.77

and the orthogonal GMM. The conventional ordinary least squares (OLS)
Table 2 estimator may suffer from both heteroscedasticity and endogeneity pro-
Estimated results for Eq. (1).
blems. Comparatively, the fixed-effects (FE) model can control the hetero-
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4) geneity among different provinces (Wooldridge, 2016) but still fail to deal
First-difference Orthogonal- OLS FE with the endogeneity problem.12 Nevertheless, the estimation results by
GMM deviation GMM OLS and FE are reported for the purpose of comparison, as in previous
studies (Auffhammer and Carson, 2008; Halkos and Paizanos, 2013; Hao
l. lnGDP 0.979*** 0.977*** 1.017*** 0.984***
(0.024) (0.010) (0.006) (0.014) et al., 2016). In this study, the generalized method of moments (GMM)
swap −0.133*** −0.111*** −0.014 −0.156** method developed by Arellano and Bond (1991) and Arellano and Bover
(0.030) (0.042) (0.048) (0.075) (1995) was employed to address the endogeneity problem. There are dif-
lnkperc 0.044* 0.045*** −0.007 0.041*** ferent types of GMM estimators, including system GMM, first-difference
(0.023) (0.008) (0.005) (0.012)
GMM, and orthogonal-difference GMM, of which the main differences lie in
trade 0.006*** 0.004*** −0.010*** 0.000
(0.002) (0.001) (0.002) (0.002) the choice of endogenous variables and corresponding instrumental vari-
c 0.046** −0.042 ables. As stressed by Huang (2010), although system GMM is theoretically
(0.022) (0.035) more efficient than difference GMM (such as first-difference GMM and
Obs./Groups/IVs 464/29/233 464/29/233 493/29 493/29 orthogonal-difference GMM), the asymptotic properties of system GMM can
R-squared 0.999 0.998
be ensured only when the number of cross-section units (N) is large enough,
F test 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
Hansen test 1.000 1.000 otherwise the system GMM estimator may suffer from weak finite sample
A-B test of AR (1) 0.029 0.033 bias. In our sample, N = 29 (the number of provinces) is comparable to
A-B test of AR (2) 0.292 0.298 T = 18 (the number of years) and not too large in magnitude; therefore,
different GMM estimators are more appropriate. As Hayakawa (2009)
Note: The numbers in parentheses are standard errors. ***, **, and * represent significant
pointed out, the main difference between first-difference GMM and ortho-
levels at 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1, respectively. Obs. is the number of observations, Groups
represents the number of groups, IVs represents the number of instrumental variables, gonal-difference GMM methods is in the way the time-invariant unobserved
and c represents a constant term. individual effects are removed. In orthogonal-difference GMM, the forward
orthogonal deviations are allowed, while first-difference GMM can assess
differences only in the backward direction (along the time dimension).
density (popd). The introduction of these control variables is to distin- However, there has been no consensus in academia on which of these two
guish the direct impacts of the age structure on environmental quality GMM methods is superior. Following recent studies such as Halkos and
from other factors that may also influence the environment Paizanos (2013) and Hao et al. (2016), the most frequently used first-dif-
(Wooldridge, 2016). As a result, the estimated coefficient β5 reflects the ference GMM is treated as the benchmark method while the orthogonal-
pure direct effect of the demographic structure on environmental difference GMM is used as the robust check.
quality when all of the influential indicators are well controlled.
Intuitively, the aging population possibly change their energy usage 4. Results and discussion
habits as they usually demand more energy for heating and cooling,
while less fossil fuel energy (e.g., gasoline and diesel) is needed for Under the empirical framework of both Eqs. (1) and (2), the main
transportation as older people comparatively travel less. Moreover, estimation results of this study are reported in Tables 2 and 3.13
seniors may spend more time at home than young people, so their In Table 2, the coefficients of each variable are similar in all
electricity consumption will also be higher, which may affect the en-
ergy mix and in turn impact the environment. In the empirical study,
12
these effects are captured by the direct effect of the demographic The endogenous problem that may stem from the bilateral causal relationship be-
tween the dependent and independent variables as well as the neglected variables might
structure on environmental quality and are reflected by the estimated
lead to biased estimations. For instance, in Eq. (2), per capita CO2 emissions are used as
coefficient β5 in Eq. (2). In contrast, the relationship between en- the dependent variable, and the income level is used as an explanatory variable. As
vironmental quality and economic development is not so obvious and pointed out by many studies (Halicioglu, 2009; Fei et al., 2011), there is a two-way causal
can only be detected using rigorous empirical studies. Given that the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution, so the endogeneity
demographic structure may affect economic growth, the indirect effect problem in this paper is mainly caused by the continuous interaction between economic
growth and carbon emissions. Thus, there may be potential endogeneity problems when
of the demographic structure on environmental quality could exist estimating Eq. (2).
through its impact on economic development. In this regard, the pre- 13
The instrumental variables (IVs) used when estimating Eq. (1) are the lags of the
sent study focuses on economic growth as the intermediary variable dependent variable (lnGDPperc) and the share of the working-age population. The IVs for
when the indirect effect is examined, as in recent studies by Cole (2007) Eq. (2) are the lags of the dependent variable (lnCO2perc) and the proportion of the
second industry output value. It is noteworthy that the number of IVs in Eq. (1) is higher
and Halkos and Paizanos (2013).
than in Eq. (2). One possible reason is that, compared to the CO2 emissions, the inertia or
Four different regression methods were utilized to estimate Eqs. (1) and growing trend in China’s economic development might be stronger (Weeks and Yao,
(2), including the ordinary least squares regression (OLS), the fixed-effects 2003). As a result, there is high relevance between the current and past levels of GDP per
(FE), the first-difference generalized method of moments (difference GMM), capita, which may lead to more IVs in Eq. (1).

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Z. Zhang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 133 (2018) 242–249

Table 3
Estimated results for Eq. (2).

Variables (5) (6) (7) (8)

First-difference Orthogonal- OLS FE
GMM deviation GMM

l. lnCO2 0.629*** 0.751*** 0.977*** 0.788***

(0.057) (0.052) (0.012) (0.024)
swap 2.120*** 2.188*** 0.011 0.556**
(0.759) (0.428) (0.173) (0.278)
ElnGDP 2.234*** 1.734*** 0.481*** 0.586***
(0.407) (0.179) (0.092) (0.124)
ElnGDP 2 −0.116*** −0.093*** −0.026*** −0.028***
(0.025) (0.012) (0.006) (0.007)
secind 0.605** −0.308 0.065 0.582***
(0.269) (0.215) (0.063) (0.127)
lnpopd −0.822* −0.235* −0.012*** −0.097
(0.485) (0.139) (0.0040) (0.086) Fig. 2. The direct/indirect/total effects of age structure on carbon emissions.
trade −0.050 0.0780*** −0.0140** 0.004
(0.062) (0.028) (0.007) (0.007)
GDPperc = 3905 yuan (using the 1978 constant price), this total effect
urb −0.063 0.309***
(0.001) (0.001) turns from negative to positive. The regression results are shown in
c −1.842*** −1.343* Fig. 2.
(0.396) (0.789) As shown in Fig. 2, the elasticity of CO2 emissions with respect to
Obs/Groups/IVs 464/29/63 464/29/63 493 493 the demographic structure is an increasing function that depends po-
R-squared 0.982 0.976
F test 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.000
sitively on GDP per capita. As a result, for the current low-income in-
Hansen test 0.996 0.997 land provinces (e.g., Guizhou, Yunnan, and Guangxi), the economic
A-B test of AR (1) 0.002 0.013 development level is no higher than the threshold, after which the
A-B test of AR (2) 0.071 0.841 elasticity turns positive (3905 yuan at constant 1978 prices). Therefore,
compared to the rich provinces, the poor provinces have relatively more
Note: The numbers in parentheses are standard errors. ***, **, and * represent significant
room for the development of labor-intensive industries because they do
levels at 0.01, 0.05, and 0.1, respectively. Obs. is the number of observations, Groups
represents the number of groups, IVs represents the number of instrumental variables, not need to worry excessively about the corresponding environmental
and c represents a constant term. deterioration due to their relatively low economic development.
According to the calculation results, the proportion of the working-
age population plays an important role in CO2 emissions. The indirect
regressions, indicating the concordance of the models. In addition, it is effect of the age structure on CO2 emissions is manifested as a sig-
noteworthy that in specification (4), there are still some coefficients nificant and monotonically increasing curve. As a whole, the impact of
that are not significant, which suggests that the GMM regression has the age structure on pollution monotonically rises with the increase in
better fitted the sample data compared to the fixed-effects regression. the proportion of the working-age population. In this regard, because
In Table 3, the estimation results indicate that the inverted U- the universal two-child policy proposed by China’s government in 2015
shaped EKC curve does exist, suggesting that the indirect effect of the will objectively improve the proportion of the working-age population,
age structure on environmental quality is a function of per capita GDP this may contribute to adverse environmental quality.
and depends on the specific level of income per capita. It is also note- In addition, the total effects follow the pattern of the indirect effect.
worthy that the estimation results add new evidence to the vast lit- One possible economic explanation for this observation is that in the
erature that found the existence of conventional EKC for CO2 emissions early stages of economic development, the initial technological level is
in China (Hao and Wei, 2015; Kang et al., 2016). Therefore, the em- relatively low, and energy- and labor-intensive industries rely heavily
pirical results indicate that CO2 emissions in China will be eventually on labor input. For example, heavy industry factories are mainly de-
brought under control as the economy continues to grow, although CO2 pendent on a labor force to supplement relatively scarce capital and
emissions are still rapidly increasing at present. According to the energy (Berndt and Wood, 1975; Hudson and Jorgenson, 1998; Kemfert
method used by Cole (2007) and Halkos and Paizanos (2013), the total and Welsch, 2000). In this regard, much energy was saved objectively
effects of the age structure on carbon emissions are calculated as fol- due to the relatively underdeveloped level of technology, so pollution
lows. emissions were low. However, with economic development, it gradually
As discussed previously in the section on data and methodology, the becomes more difficult for enterprises to further improve their pro-
level of the direct effects is just the long-term estimated coefficient β5 of ductivity only by hiring more workers. At this point, many factors (e.g.,
Eq. (2). The indirect effects are equal to the product of the partial im- capital and energy) are put into production because the price of energy
pact of GDP per capita on CO2 emissions per capita estimated in Eq. (2) has long been relatively low. This is especially the case in heavy in-
and the partial impact of the demographic structure on GDP per capita dustry, which could directly stimulate economic growth. As a result,
based on the estimation results of Eq. (1). In other words, indirect ef- energy consumption and related environmental pollution may increase
∂ ln CO ∂ ln GDP
fects = ∂ ln GDP2 * ∂swap Therefore, with economic development. As Birdsall and Wheeler (1993) stressed,
capital-intensive industries are often pollution-intensive; therefore,
∂ ln CO2 ∂ ln GDP
total effects = β5+ * . pollution emitted at this stage is relatively serious. To effectively reduce
∂ ln GDP ∂swap (3)
environmental pollution in the future, technological progress, espe-
Specifically, based on the benchmark first-difference GMM results cially advanced technology to improve energy efficiency and reduce
shown in the first columns of Tables 2 and 3, respectively, the total pollution intensity (measured as the ratio of pollution to output),
effects of swap on environmental quality could be calculated as should be promoted and encouraged. Furthermore, considering that
5.71 + (6.02−2 * 0.31*lnGDPperc) * (−6.33) = 3.92*lnGDPperc China’s energy mix is dominated by coal, a type of dirty energy that has
−32.40. As a result, the total effects of the age structure on CO2 been blamed for serious air pollution in recent years, it is particularly
emissions per capita are monotonically increasing along with the in- important for the Chinese government to optimize its energy structure
crease in the GDPperc. In other words, when ln(GDPperc) = 8.27, by enhancing renewable energy.

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Z. Zhang et al.
Finally, the regression results are not all significant in this study. For
example, the regression coefficients of trade openness are significant
only in specifications (6) and (7), which indicates that the impact of
trade openness on carbon emissions is not robust. However, it should be
noted that the impact of trade openness on CO2 emissions itself is also
controversial in the existing literature.
5. Conclusions and policy implications
At present, China's labor force growth has slowed, leading to a ra-
pidly aging society. This paper focused on the relationship between the
population age structure and environmental pollution. Based on data
from 29 provinces in China from 1995 to 2012, our research analyzed
the effects of the age structure on carbon emissions and examined the
direct and indirect effects. We found the following: First, the impact of
the age structure on carbon emissions is particularly strong in low-in-
come provinces. Second, a higher ratio of the working-age population
objectively has adverse impacts on environmental quality at the current
level of economic development. Third, the direct effect of the share of
the working-age population on CO2 emissions is positive, while the
indirect effect depends on the specific level of GDP per capita. Finally,
there is evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between CO2
emissions and GDP per capita.
In summary, the conclusions of this study will help provide theo-
retical and empirical guidance for other aging populations such as
China during periods of economic transition. The implications of this
paper are as follows:
(1) Because the estimation results indicate that the impact of the
demographic structure on environmental quality hinges on the level of
economic development, given the significant differences in economic
and social development among China's regions, in some high-income
regions such as Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, the proportion of the
working-age population has been so sufficient that a higher level may
trigger more CO2 emissions per capita, other conditions being equal.
Thus, blindly increasing the share of the working-age population in
these provinces would be harmful to environmental quality. However,
in the current low-income inland regions, the economic development
level is not beyond the per capita GDP threshold. Thus, it is possible to
effectively protect environment quality as the share of the working-age
population increases in these provinces while promoting economic
growth. Given that China’s provincial GDP per capita will continue to
grow, China’s recent implementation of the universal two-child policy,
which will increase the working-age population over the next 25 years,
may have negative effects on environmental quality in the future.
(2) One important finding of this study is that a higher ratio of
working-age population objectively has adverse direct influences on
environmental quality. Therefore, the Chinese government should pay
more attention to the environmental impacts when the population
policy and regulations are changed to adapt to the imminent aging
society. For instance, loosening population regulations (e.g., the uni-
versal two-child policy) may put pressure on the environment in the
future. In this regard, to avoid potential adverse environmental effects,
China should accelerate the structural transformation of its economy
and industry and encourage sustainable development, especially the
development of energy efficiency and clean energy substitution (Yuan
et al., 2018). These policy measures could effectively reduce environ-
mental pollution intensity (pollution produced per one unit of GDP) and
therefore reduce environmental pressure that may result from the in-
creased labor force in the future. This implication is also in line with a
recent study by Yu et al. (2018).
6. Limitations and possible future research directions
Although this is the first study investigating the relationship be-
tween the demographic structure and environmental quality in China,
this review is preliminary, and much room remains for future follow-up
248
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 133 (2018) 242–249
research. For instance, as the improvement of energy mix is an im-
portant reason for the change in China’s CO2 emissions, it could be
incorporated as an extra explanatory variable in future studies when
provincial data on energy mix become fully available. Additionally,
given the significant urban-rural gap in economic and social develop-
ment and because most of China’s economic activities occur in cities,
future studies could focus on city-level data that contains interesting
and useful information. Because recent studies have begun to calculate
city-level CO2 emissions in China (Mi et al., 2016), more elaborate re-
search could be conducted if city-level demographic data are available.
Moreover, the possible impact of population policy changes should be
considered in future studies. As China recently loosened its birth control
regulations (the universal two-child policy was implemented in 2015),
the trend of aging may be altered. Therefore, future demographic
changes influenced by population policy may also affect environmental
quality, which deserves further assessment and follow-up empirical
studies when sufficient data become available. In addition, because
change in the demographic structure is a dynamic process that may be
affected by the population policy, the environmental impact of the
demographic structure might differ at varying levels. In other words,
there may be threshold effects in the relationship between demographic
change and environmental quality that can be detected and estimated
using appropriate empirical methods (e.g., dynamic panel threshold
models) when data for a sufficiently long time span are accessible.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (71761137001, 71403015, and 71521002),
the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (9162013), the key research pro-
gram of the Beijing Social Science Foundation (17JDYJA009), the National
Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFA0602801
and 2016YFA0602603), and the Joint Development Program of Beijing
Municipal Commission of Education. The authors are also very grateful to
four anonymous reviewers and Editor-in-Chief Professor Dr. Ming Xu for
their insightful comments that helped us sufficiently improve the quality of
this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.
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