Does Population Aging Impact China’s Economic Growth?

The rapid aging of the population presents great challenges in terms of China’s social security expenditure and economic growth. This paper uses the entropy method to comprehensively measure the provincial population aging index in 2008–2019 and constructs an intermediary effect model with it as the core explanatory variable. The results show that the population aging has a significant positive impact on economic growth and on the promotion of the economic growth of more developed areas; it also has a positive impact on the endowment insurance expenditure and medical and health expenditure and on the promotion of economically backward areas. Endowment spending and health spending fully mediate the relationship between population aging and economic growth.