Impact of demographic age structure on energy consumption structure: Evidence from population aging in mainland China

Since the 21st century, the global population aging has been deepening, profoundly affecting regional socio-economy. To investigate the impact of demographic age structure on energy consumption structure, this paper explores the impact of population aging on energy consumption structure in mainland China by a multivariate panel regression model. The total energy consumption is increasing year by year in mainland China, with a fluctuating lower growth rate and obvious regional heterogeneity. The high-value total energy con-sumption zones are concentrated in China's eastern region, dominated by Shandong, etc. Meanwhile, energy consumption structure in mainland China has evolved with a decreasing share of coal consumption. Among them, the share of natural gas consumption is still at a low level, while which of petroleum consumption shows diversity. Population aging has a significant positive correlation with energy consumption structure at the na-tional level, and a negative effect in the medium-value coal consumption zones at the provincial level. Addi-tionally, GDP, the share of secondary industry and energy price are also important. Based on the above findings, some suggestions for optimizing pension service system, adjusting energy consumption structure and econo-mizing fossil energy are proposed.