随着中国人口老龄化问题日益严重，社会经济结构出现了深刻的变化，这给中国经济的持续发展带来了新的挑战。同时，科技持续且快速发展，数字经济正逐渐成为中国经济发展的新引擎。人口老龄化不仅带来了养老、医疗等领域的挑战，也给劳动力市场和经济增长带来了压力。在这一背景下，数字经济作为信息化时代的产物发展迅速，为经济结构的升级提供了全新的机遇。数字经济的出现不仅为老龄化社会提供了更多的就业机会和经济增长点，也为中国经济的可持续发展注入了新的活力。

目前，关于人口老龄化、数字经济和经济发展三个变量两两之间的研究已经非常丰富，但同时考虑三个变量，讨论数字经济在人口老龄化和经济发展之间发挥的调节效应的研究相对较少，本文通过建立以数字经济为调节变量的调节效应模型，来讨论数字经济在人口老龄化和经济发展之间存在的调节效应并揭示其作用机制，同时，针对我国东、中、西部地区存在的区域性差异，讨论了调节效应的区域异质性，并得出如下结论：

第一，不断加深的人口老龄化对数字经济的快速发展存在正向促进作用。人口老龄化必然会导致劳动力供给短缺和质量下降，劳动效率较以往大打折扣，曾经的劳动密集型产业不得不在技术上寻求突破以适应当前环境，这为数字经济提供了良好的发展环境和源源不断的动力；第二，数字经济的快速发展促进了产业结构升级，传统产业加数字化的模式成为了适应当前我国发展阶段的最优解，我国的产业结构正在乘着这股数字化之风不断优化升级；第四，数字经济在人口老龄化和我国经济发展之间发挥着显著的调节效应。人口老龄化-数字经济发展-产业结构升级这条机制路径有效的降低了人口老龄化对我国经济发展的负面效应，数字经济的调节效应推动我国经济向好向优发展，在新时代，新阶段下，该调节机制也将为解决我国人口老龄化的相关问题提供新思路；第五，数字经济的调节效应呈现出由西到东逐渐增强的趋势。

在人口老龄化愈加严重与数字经济快速发展的双重背景下，中国经济发展面临诸多挑战与机遇。随着数字经济的快速发展，中国有望在有效应对人口老龄化问题的同时，实现经济转型升级和高质量发展。政府应进一步加大对数字经济的支持力度，制定相应政策措施，加强技术创新与人才培养，不断优化数字经济发展环境。

With the aging of China's population and the profound changes in its socio-economic structure, China's economy is facing new challenges to its sustainable development. At the same time, technology continues to develop at a rapid pace, and the digital economy is emerging as a new engine for China's economic development. The aging population not only brings challenges in the areas of pension and healthcare, but also puts pressure on the labor market and economic growth. Against this backdrop, the digital economy, as a product of the information age, is developing rapidly, providing brand new opportunities for upgrading the economic structure. The emergence of digital economy not only provides more employment opportunities and economic growth points for the aging society, but also injects new vitality into the sustainable development of China's economy.

Currently, there are abundant researches on the two-by-two relationship among the three variables of population aging, digital economy and economic development, but there are relatively few researches considering the three variables at the same time and discussing the moderating effect of the digital economy between population aging and economic development, this paper discusses the existence of the moderating effect of digital economy between population aging and economic development and reveals its functioning mechanism by setting up a moderating effect model with digital economy as a moderating variable. This paper discusses the moderating effect of digital economy between population aging and economic development and reveals its mechanism of action by establishing a moderating effect model with digital economy as the moderating variable, and at the same time, it discusses the regional heterogeneity of the moderating effect with respect to the regional differences in the eastern, central and western regions of China and draws the following conclusions:

First, the deepening population aging has a positive promoting effect on the rapid development of the digital economy. Population aging will inevitably lead to labor supply shortages and quality decline, labor efficiency is greatly reduced compared to the past, and the once labor-intensive industries have to seek technological breakthroughs to adapt to the current environment, which provides a good environment for the development of the digital economy and a steady stream of power; second, the rapid development of the digital economy promotes the upgrading of the industrial structure, and the model of traditional industries plus digitization becomes an optimal solution for adapting to the current Second, the rapid development of digital economy promotes the upgrading of industrial structure, and the model of traditional industry plus digitalization has become the optimal solution to adapt to the current stage of development in China, and the industrial structure of our country is continuously optimized and upgraded riding on the wind of digitalization; Fourth, the digital economy plays a significant moderating effect between the aging population and the economic development of China. The mechanism of population aging - digital economy development - industrial structure upgrading effectively reduces the negative effect of population aging on China's economic development, and the regulating effect of digital economy promotes China's economic development to be better and better, and the regulating mechanism will also provide new ideas for solving the problems related to China's population aging in a new era and a new stage; Fifthly, the regulating effect of the digital economy shows a trend of gradually increasing from west to east. Fifth, the regulatory effect of the digital economy shows a trend of gradual enhancement from west to east.

Against the dual background of aging population and rapid development of digital economy, China's economic development faces many challenges and opportunities. With the rapid development of the digital economy, China is expected to realize economic transformation, upgrading and high-quality development while effectively addressing the problem of population aging. The government should further increase its support for the digital economy, formulate appropriate policies and measures, strengthen technological innovation and talent training, and continuously optimize the environment for the development of the digital economy.