In recent years, the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has not only transformed economic and social operation models but has also triggered new reflections in demographic research. The impact of AI on employment, household decision-making and population development has become an important topic worthy of close attention.

The most intuitive impact of AI on demographics is manifested at the employment level. A new generation of AI technologies is diverting labor demand away from basic clerical positions, such as data organization. While AI replaces certain positions, it also creates new employment demands and occupational forms.

However, this process is not a simple one-to-one replacement of jobs. On one hand, emerging positions require high digital literacy and rapid learning capabilities; on the other hand, the displaced positions are mostly concentrated in basic, repetitive tasks, resulting in a structural skill mismatch between the two cohorts.

Furthermore, the substitution effect of technology tends to manifest before its creation effect, as the formation of new industries and business formats requires a certain gestation cycle. This dual mismatch in both skills and timelines means that employment trends influenced by AI will exhibit transitional "growing pains."

The key to navigating this transition period lies in enhancing the adaptability of the workforce. As the requirements for new positions regarding digital and composite skills continue to rise, increasing the importance of vocational training, continuing education, and job transition mechanisms. Refining the lifelong learning system so that workers can continuously adapt to industrial shifts has become an imperative direction.

Meanwhile, the service sector will remain a critical buffer for absorbing employment over the medium to long term. As population aging deepens, demand in fields such as elderly care and domestic services continues to grow. These industries not only require a significant amount of human labor, but are also difficult to fully replace with AI in the short term.

The growth of industries like domestic service and elderly care nursing has created new employment opportunities for many middle-aged workers. The service sector serves as both a crucial reservoir for expanding employment and a foundational pillar for safeguarding public livelihoods. Relevant institutional and policy support can be further optimized to unleash the service sector's potential to stabilize employment.

In the AI era, the importance of educational reform has become even more prominent. The AI era demands the cultivation of innovation, comprehensive capabilities and lifelong learning skills. While well-rounded education has been steadily promoted in recent years, it still runs parallel to traditional exam-oriented education in practice.

China should further deepen the reform of educational evaluation and accelerate the transformation of the education system, shifting the focus of talent cultivation toward the capabilities required for future social development. Concurrently, tangible efforts must be made to create a more supportive and nurturing environment for youth growth and family development.

In the AI era, China's demographic dividend has taken on a new connotation. At present, the market space, diverse application scenarios and abundant data resources brought by China's massive population remain vital advantages for developing new quality productive forces.

As the caliber of talent continues to improve, the quality dividend is becoming a more critical pillar for development. Looking to the long-term future, China must adhere to the tight integration of investing in physical assets and investing in human capital, continuously amplifying its population quality advantages and translating them into a sustainable engine for high-quality development.

Overall, demographic issues in the AI era require a fine balance between technological progress and social adaptation. We must objectively view the structural adjustments brought about by technological transformation and, through institutional optimization and policy synergy, convert these adjustments into a driving force for high-quality population development, achieving a mutually reinforcing and healthy interaction between technological advancement and long-term balanced population growth.

(The author is director of the Population Research Institute at the School of Economics, Hebei University. )