In this chapter, we will explore whether it is possible to account for the intuition that a contribution rate of the “active” population to the benefit of the elderly can be said to be unjustly high. This is one possible lens through which to look at issues of justice related to population ageing. The chapter follows three steps. First, it looks at issues of justice in case of a population with high longevity devoid of any heterogeneity in longevity. Second, it introduces unequal longevities within each birth cohort, without any increase in average longevity between birth cohorts. Third, it adds the fact of increasing average longevity over time. The chapter shows that the core problem faced by a high contribution rate – e.g. to fund pension schemes – is associated with heterogeneity in longevity, which can obtain even in the absence of population ageing. We even show that the latter surprisingly softens the dilemma faced by a theory of justice concerned with inequalities over complete lives between short-lived and long-lived individuals.

Chapter 2 evaluates three popular explanations of China’s rapid economic rise over the past forty years, including its low income base and cheap labor, demographic dividend, and export promotion. It is shown first that low income or cheap labor alone does not make a country grow faster. In fact, most developing countries do not catch up quickly with developed countries. The chapter then evaluates how much the demographic dividend may have contributed to China’s extraordinary growth. It is shown that the direct demographic dividend resulting mechanically from faster growth of labor than general population accounted for only half a percentage point of China’s GDP per capita growth, and it was not much different from that of many other developing countries. But China enjoyed a higher indirect demographic dividend in the form of higher savings and more education due to a lowering dependency ratio, and it may explain up to 2 percentage points of China’s growth. As for export promotion, the chapter demonstrates that China’s export share in GDP is actually lower than that of most countries, and its rapid export growth is not the cause but the result of its fast economic growth.