An important manifestation of China's entry into a new stage of development is that the main constraining factor for economic growth has shifted from the supply side to the demand side, and household consumption is increasingly becoming the decisive driving force for growth. Since the 2020s, China's population has entered a stage of moderate aging in structure and a negative growth era in total. While the supply side constraints on economic growth remain severe, the demand side constraints on economic growth have become more prominent. This is manifested both in general regularity and in the uniqueness of China. In response to new challenges and issues, only by understanding the demand side like understanding the supply side can we go beyond the cyclical perspective, gain a deeper understanding of household consumption phenomena, derive policy implications, and propose policy recommendations. Making household consumption the core driving force for economic growth on the demand side is equivalent to exploring the "ins and outs" of the process of economic growth by understanding the supply and demand sides of macroeconomics from a long-term perspective. Among them, "Lailong" refers to which factors are condensed into products or services from the supply side and how much contribution they make respectively; 'De Mai' refers to the direction and contribution of the products or services produced from the demand side. Consumption (including household consumption and government expenditure), investment, and net exports are the necessary demand conditions for the national economic cycle. It can be seen that the demand side, as the ultimate destination of output, especially consumption, is more prominently reflected in its function as a development goal. Demand factors, especially household consumption, have become the main constraints on China's economic growth. For example, the existence and severity of this constraint can be seen from the following factors. Firstly, whether it is the natural trend of declining comparative advantages in the manufacturing industry, the new situation presented by globalization, or the trend of supply chain "decoupling" caused by geopolitics, all constitute a suppression of China's economic export demand. Secondly, the transition from high-speed growth to high-quality development requires a shift from factor driven to productivity driven on the supply side, and from investment driven to consumption driven on the demand side. Thirdly, negative population growth, aging, and slowing employment and income growth have all significantly suppressed household consumption. Among the various factors on the supply side, although economics has long been obsessed with studying the cultivation or accumulation of various factors, total factor productivity, as the fundamental driving force of economic growth, has always been an self-evident premise assumption. However, as economic growth increasingly feels constrained by long-term demand, the key role played by household consumption has become increasingly apparent. International experience has shown that maintaining the resident consumption rate at a normal level consistent with the development stage is the key for high-speed growing economies to avoid abnormal deceleration, and therefore a necessary answer to avoid the middle-income trap. A study aimed at revealing when and why rapidly growing economies experience a significant slowdown suggests that the higher the household consumption rate of an economy, the lower the probability of a significant slowdown in economic growth, and vice versa. For China, attaching great importance to household consumption is not only a manifestation of adhering to the people-centered development concept, but also a requirement for improving the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies. To achieve a leap in consumption level, it is necessary to overcome a series of gravity or resistance related to the development background. It should be pointed out that making household consumption the core driving force of economic growth demand side is not a natural and effortless process in the past, nor will it be in the future. It is necessary to change the concept, make achievements in policies, and even go through a critical minimum effort or thrilling leap, which requires overcoming a series of gravity or resistance related to the development background. The first gravity that needs to be overcome is the long-term trend of both GDP and disposable income growth slowing down. On the one hand, the imminent crossing of the high income threshold signifies that China is in a higher stage of economic development; On the other hand, entering an era of negative population growth and a moderately aging society signifies that China is in a higher stage of demographic transition. In the early stages of economic development and population transition, China experienced a typical dual economic development: as an economically catching up country, it has the factor endowment of unlimited labor supply, which can avoid the phenomenon of diminishing returns to capital; Resource reallocation and efficiency can be achieved through the transfer of surplus agricultural labor; The latecomer advantage also effectively reduces innovation costs. Therefore, a higher stage of development means that the decline of the aforementioned catch-up momentum becomes a natural slowdown in economic growth and continues to decline slowly. Correspondingly, the growth of disposable income of residents has also slowed down, and the improvement of residents' consumption ability is difficult to reach the speed and magnitude of the past. Since 2010, the potential growth rate of China's GDP has shown a downward trend, and so far, the actual growth of GDP has also shown a consistent trend. As for the per capita disposable income of residents, although slightly lagging behind the slowdown in economic growth, it also shows a strong regression trend that matches economic growth. The second gravity that needs to be overcome is the current distribution pattern where the income gap among residents is still too large. Both economic theory and practical experience indicate that low-income households have a higher marginal propensity to consume than high-income households, meaning that the former's household income growth is usually more used for consuming goods and services. Correspondingly, a significant income gap among residents will inevitably lead to the formation and accumulation of unmet consumer demands throughout society. The Gini coefficient of per capita disposable income of Chinese residents has been decreasing since reaching a peak of 0.491 in 2008, but after reaching a trough of 0.462 in 2015, the downward trend has been hovering, and it will still reach as high as 0.465 in 2024. The overall income gap is composed of urban-rural gap, intra rural gap, and intra urban gap. While the urban-rural gap is narrowing and making a positive contribution to the overall income gap, the intra urban income gap is showing a slight widening trend, which may further suppress residents' consumption. The third gravity that needs to be overcome is the trend of rapid aging and the characteristic of aging before becoming rich. Generally speaking, the degree of aging is highly positively correlated with the level of per capita GDP. That is to say, as the aging population continues to deepen, the resident consumption rate converges towards a more certain range from higher and lower levels, respectively. However, the characteristic of aging before becoming rich means that at a similar level of development, China has a deeper aging population and lower consumption rate. The specific manifestations of age groups are as follows: firstly, although the consumption rate of teenagers is high, the number of this population group has significantly decreased, making it difficult to support overall consumption growth; Secondly, middle-aged and older workers bear the triple burden of pension insurance contributions, elderly family support, and preventive savings, which suppresses their consumption ability and willingness; Thirdly, the labor participation rate and social security coverage of the elderly, as well as the employment quality of their children, are all relatively low, which suppresses their consumption ability and willingness. Promoting necessary conceptual changes, policy adjustments, and institutional construction, like understanding changes in supply side factors, is an important prerequisite for making realistic judgments, implementing appropriate policies, and deploying targeted measures to maintain long-term sustainable growth of the Chinese economy from a long-term perspective. Based on the general laws of modernization in various countries and China's national conditions, the following key measures are proposed to promote necessary conceptual changes, policy adjustments, and institutional construction. Firstly, cultivate future oriented human capital throughout the entire lifecycle and create more and higher quality employment opportunities. Employment is the foundation of people's livelihood, and labor remuneration is the most reliable support for household income and residents' consumption. With the deepening of aging population and the decrease of working age population, the main contradiction in China's employment has shifted from a total problem to a structural problem. The main difficulty is the matching between human resource supply and demand, with a focus on the employment opportunities and quality of the "one elderly and one small" group. Starting from the cultivation of human capital, improving the skills of workers and their adaptability to the labor market can be achieved through two strategies that combine both short-term and long-term approaches. In the near future, with the help of the stock of vocational education and training resources, skill training will be provided to newly growing labor force, in-service workers, and delayed retirees to improve the matching degree between workers and positions. In the long run, it is anticipated that artificial intelligence will drive disruptive technological innovation. Based on future human capital needs, we will cultivate a new generation of workers with cognitive abilities, soft skills, and lifelong learning capabilities, and promote the synchronous improvement of workers' skills, labor compensation levels, and employment quality. Secondly, while promoting economic growth at a reasonable and satisfactory pace and continuing to "make the cake bigger", more attention should be paid to "dividing the cake well" through redistribution means. The fundamental improvement of the income distribution pattern, such as lowering the Gini coefficient below the benchmark of 0.4, ultimately relies on redistribution measures. China still has great potential in strengthening the use of tax and transfer payment redistribution methods adopted by high-income countries. On the one hand, according to data from the World Bank in 2023, personal income tax, corporate income tax, and capital gains tax, which have a significant effect on regulating income distribution, only account for 35.7% of total tax revenue in China, significantly lower than almost all OECD countries and even lower than many middle-income countries. On the other hand, according to a previous study, using countries with per capita GDP between $12000 and $30000 as a reference, the proportion of Chinese government expenditure to GDP in 2020 was 33.9%, significantly lower than the average level of 40.4% in the reference countries; The proportion of social expenditure by the Chinese government to total government expenditure is 52.4%, which is significantly lower than the average level of 62% in the reference country. Finally, with the improvement of development level, the boundaries of public goods are constantly expanded to provide basic public services more fully and equally. The conditions that need to be created for this are to significantly expand government social sector expenditures in accordance with the increasing demand for public goods from the people. In fact, with the long-term changes in residents' consumption rate, the government expenditure rate, that is, the proportion of government expenditure to GDP, has also undergone corresponding changes. The changes in these two indicators are manifested as a decrease in household consumption rate and an increase in government expenditure rate, showing a convergence between the two. According to World Bank data, in the upper middle income stage, the average government expenditure rate is 26.9%, and the average household consumption rate is 62.9%; During the stage from entering the high-income threshold to entering the threshold of moderately developed countries, the average government expenditure rate increases to 35.6%, while the average household consumption rate decreases to 58%. This relative change has two meanings: firstly, as per capita income levels increase, an increasing portion of the improvement in residents' quality of life is met by public goods; Secondly, the value of basic public services and other public goods is usually not reflected in consumer spending. Therefore, an increase in the supply of public goods and an improvement in personal satisfaction do not reflect an increase in consumer spending. (New Society)