Impacts of Population Multifactor Changes on Economic Development: The Case of China's Liaoning Coastal Economic Zone

The driving effects of population factors on economic development are more from the combined forces of multiple population factors than from individual factors. This paper examines the impacts of the changes in population factors from a multi-factor synergy perspective using the Liaoning Coastal Economic Belt of China as the study area over the period of 2007 through 2017. The factors used include population quantity, structure, quality, and migration. The Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) and Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression (GTWR) were combined to explore this multi-factor synergy. The results showed that: 1) Population factors drove economic development not through the independent action of single factors, but through core-factor synergy and auxiliary-factor complementation. The most effective driving path consisted of dual-core drivers: change in education level and change in age structure, combined with population quantity change complemented by migration. 2) The importance of population factors was clearly ranked. Change in education level was the primary dominant factor, followed by change in age structure. The driving effect of population migration was stronger than that of natural population change. 3) From the temporal dimension, the population driving effect went through three stages: a golden period dominated by population quantity, a transition period with weakened quantity-driven effects, and a quality-driven period centered on population mobility and quality. 4) From the spatial dimension, the impact of the same population factor combination showed significant regional differences. It formed a multi-level intensity gradient of "high-medium-low" relating to the spatial differentiation of combination effects due to changes of these multi population factors over space. Through this multi-factor analysis approach, this paper shows the inner working of multi-factor driving mechanism of population factors on economic development. The findings on the inner working of the changes in population factors on economic development provide support for economic management through population policy during the era of rapid changes in population.