Population aging, artificial intelligence and mismatch of labor resources: evidence from China

In the future, population ageing will represent the basic national condition of China in the long term. Therefore, it is essential to explore the changes in the supply of the working population and its impact influence on the effective allocation of labour resources in the context of population ageing, while evaluating the governance efficacy of AI. The study findings indicate that population ageing significantly exacerbates the mismatch of labour resources, whereas the application of AI mitigates the adverse impacts of population ageing on labour resource allocation. Additionally, the distortionary effects of population ageing on the allocation of labour resources are greater in regions with high average education levels and regions with more extensively segmented markets, while the moderating effects of AI are reported to be more effective. Thus, the proposed findings extend a theoretical basis for improving the efficiency of labour resource allocation from the perspective of population ageing.