Per reporter: Li Mingming Per editor: Chen Xu
Almost every release of population data will arouse widespread concern and discussion in society.
On January 17, the National Bureau of Statistics released data showing that the birth population in 2021 was 10.62 million, with a birth rate of 7.52 per thousand, while the proportion of the elderly population aged 65 and over rose to 14.2%, the highest since statistics were available. The trend of "old age and low birthrate" and "deep aging" of Chinese population continues to deepen.
Population is the cornerstone of social development, after the country gradually liberalized the two-child, three-child policy, some people of childbearing age have not significantly increased their willingness to have children, bringing great challenges to the mainland to formulate relevant birth policies, in order to make more families "dare to have children" and "willing to have children", the policy of encouraging fertility should also be more precise.
What are the main policies in the mainland to support fertility? How has it evolved? Has the problem of low fertility been solved? What are the international population support policies that we can learn from?
With the above questions in mind, the Daily Economic News (hereinafter referred to as the NBD) reporter conducted an exclusive interview with Yuan Xin, a professor at the School of Economics of Nankai University.
The three-child support policy is expected to raise the fertility rate to about 1.5
NBD: At present, from a nationwide perspective, what are the main policies that have been introduced to support fertility in the mainland? What role have these measures played in slowing the trend towards lower birth rates?
Yuan Xin: For decades, the mainland's fertility policy has been continuously adjusted along with the demographic situation. Since 2013, the orientation of fertility policy has shifted from an austerity type to a moderately relaxed type, and a number of corresponding comprehensive supporting policies have been introduced.
In 2013, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China announced the implementation of the "single two-child" policy.
In 2015, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to "fully implement the policy that one couple can have two children", which met the wishes of families to have two children. After the implementation of the policy, the proportion of two children born and the total fertility rate of two children have increased significantly.
This was followed by the Population and Family Planning Law of the People's Republic of China (amended in 2015) on 27 December 2015. On December 31 of that year, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Decision on Implementing the Comprehensive Two-Child Policy Reform and Improving the Management of Family Planning Services, which made specific arrangements for the implementation of the comprehensive two-child policy.
On May 31, 2021, a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee decided to "implement the policy that a couple can have three children and supporting measures".
In July of the same year, the Decision of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Optimizing The Birth Policy to Promote the Long-term Balanced Development of the Population was officially promulgated, which clearly implemented the policy that a couple can have three children, abolished restrictive measures such as social support fees, cleaned up and abolished relevant penalty provisions, and implemented active birth support measures.
On August 20, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress voted to adopt a decision on amending the Population and Family Planning Law of the People's Republic of China.
The single two-child and comprehensive two-child policy emphasizes the relaxation of the policy, and the implementation of a long-term tightening birth policy before the promulgation of the policy means that the number of children born has moved from strong constraints to limited constraints, that is, moderate relaxation.
The adjustment of the three-child policy is different from the previous two policies, which not only further relaxes the birth restrictions themselves, but also enhances the inclusiveness of the birth policy. The "Decision on Optimizing the Birth Policy and Promoting the Long-term Balanced Development of the Population" issued by the CPC Central Committee and the State Council is to focus on solving the problems of "daring to give birth" and "raising well."
Analyzing a series of decision-making measures and plans of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, there are principled and strategic arrangements, indicating the key tasks of population and fertility at different stages of development, and the specific task deployment at the operational level. If the three-child birth policy and its supporting measures can be effectively implemented, and the current total fertility rate of about 1.3 can be increased to 1.5 or 1.6, the number of births during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period remains at about 10 million.
National population and natural growth rate from 2011 to 2021
Image source: National Bureau of Statistics
It is recommended that appropriate standards be set for parental leave and maternity benefits
NBD: What are the shortcomings of the current mainland policy to encourage fertility?
Yuan Xin: Any social public policy may have both advantages and disadvantages, and the introduction of a social public policy cannot all be beneficial or non-con, as long as the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
First of all, taking maternity leave as an example, many places have extended maternity leave in order to encourage childbirth, which has many benefits for the cultivation of children, the maintenance of parent-child family relationships, the health of children and the recovery of the mother's body, but the biggest negative effect may be that women's right to return to work may be greatly affected.
Therefore, maternity leave does not necessarily mean that the longer the better, while extending maternity leave, the incentive policy can do more consideration in the balance between family and work.
Second, the policy should also consider how to reduce the pressure of social competition. For example, many middle- and high-income people are not under great financial pressure, but they rarely have children.
When I recently conducted special training on the demographic situation for the management of some enterprises, I observed that the trainees are generally high-income earners with certain economic strength. Less than half of women between the ages of 30 and 40 have two children, few three, and some have no children. These trainees told me that it was not that they could not afford to have children but that they did not dare to have children, because social competition and corporate competition were too fierce.
Third, at the cultural level, it is necessary to create a birth-friendly public opinion environment. Now there is too little publicity about the positive effects of the whole marriage, family and children, so many young people choose to be Dink when they get married, and more and more people like this.
In some questionnaire surveys, young people are increasingly uninterested in raising children and preventing old age, passing on the generations, and passing on the surname. In the minds of young people, the traditional cultural perception of the family has changed.
From another point of view, the function of the family is also weakening, and the construction and capacity of the national public service system are becoming stronger and stronger. Therefore, it may lead to some of the original functions of the family, such as the elderly, now do not need to be solved within the family, but can be solved through socialized and market-oriented services.
Fourth, in terms of taxation and housing, the personal income tax reduction policy introduced since the implementation of the comprehensive two-child policy, I think the intensity can be increased a little, such as proposing more targeted personal income tax reduction measures for different numbers of children. There are also relevant regulations such as house purchase and low-cost housing, which can be tilted towards multi-child families.
Image source: Xinhua News Agency
Fifth, in terms of education, it is proposed to extend the period of 9 years of compulsory education to 12 years, and the three-year education period of kindergartens is also included in compulsory education, and in some provinces with better economic conditions, compulsory education can be extended to high schools, that is, increased to 15 years, that is, all educational stages before higher education are covered, which can effectively alleviate the parenting pressure of young people.
In addition, I propose to establish appropriate standards and floating space above the standards for parental leave and maternity allowances. Because at present, the practices in various places are different, which is relatively chaotic, and it is easy to cause new social contradictions.
NBD: Some netizens have reported that the local government has introduced policies to encourage fertility such as parental leave, but the company does not support this policy. How to balance the contradiction between policy release and implementation? How to stimulate the enthusiasm of employers to implement various measures to encourage childbirth?
Yuan Xin: In fact, in the process of implementing the comprehensive two-child policy, similar practical problems have emerged.
First of all, we must increase the intensity of legal popularization and cultivate the legal awareness of enterprises.
Secondly, we must encourage enterprises to actively assume social responsibility, but extending maternity leave and setting up nursing leave cause certain cost pressure on enterprises, whether it is 100% for enterprises to bear, and whether there can be other incentives, this can be considered.
It is recommended that the state give certain policy preferences and care to enterprises in the tax and employment system to make up for some losses of enterprises in this regard. That is to say, not only can enterprises bear some social responsibilities, but the government also needs to reduce some burdens, and everyone can do this thing well together.
It is recommended to learn from the policies of other countries to extend the number of years of compulsory education
NBD: In the next step, on the basis of existing policy measures, how can we better prescribe the right medicine and introduce more systematic incentives? What are your suggestions?
Yuan Xin: I think the first thing to ask is to ask those who need to have children, to really understand the needs of the fertility population, and on this basis, according to the financial resources of the state and local governments and the level of public governance, we should do what we can and do our best.
For example, maternity allowance, some places implement a monthly subsidy of 2,000 yuan for the birth of a third child, in Guangdong and Zhejiang, these relatively wealthy places can still be supported by finance, but in some remote areas of poor areas may not be issued, which may cause new social contradictions. Therefore, the specific amount should be determined according to the local finances and the needs of the masses.
Second, the construction of public nurseries and kindergartens should keep up. More than 10 million children are born in the mainland every year, which is a huge market and public demand, and the shortcomings that exist should be made up.
Third, in terms of employment, attention should be paid to the protection of women's legal rights, and there should be some specific arrangements in terms of legal policies and incentives, taking into account the balance between women's families and work.
Fourth, according to the survey, 50% to 70% of the children in the mainland are taken care of by the elderly of grandparents' generations, because the elderly help to take care of children is intergenerational reciprocity in the private field of the family, and there is no law and policy that stipulates that the elderly have the obligation to take children. Therefore, it is recommended that the government recognize that this way of taking children is also a social contribution, and that certain subsidies and spiritual encouragement can be considered economically, which can also reduce the burden on public childcare institutions. In countries such as Singapore, where the elderly can get a certain subsidy to help with children, the mainland can also consider establishing a similar system to affirm this contribution.
Fifth, now late marriage and late childbearing has become a major trend, the average age of women's first childbearing is generally around 27 to 28 years old, and many of the second children are over 30 years old, so the services of fertility technology must be guaranteed. For example, allowances such as free pre-pregnancy health consultation, pre-pregnancy eugenics technical services, pregnancy tests, and hospital deliveries provide the necessary support in terms of economic, technical and psychological services.
It is also very important that reproductive health services for people of childbearing age must be improved. There are about 9 million abortions in the mainland every year, and the phenomenon of abortion is obviously young, which also reflects the need to strengthen reproductive health services for the whole population.
NBD: Internationally, what are the broad categories of fertility support policies in various countries? What is the current effect? What are the implications of these measures for us?
Yuan Xin: To sum up, there are roughly four categories.
The first is the family support policy, the core is the balance between the family and work of women or birthers, and the docking of women's postpartum work is more in place, which is more typical of the French family support policy.
In the European Union, the government usually attaches great importance to the family and its investment in family welfare, such as the establishment of the German Ministry for Family Affairs, the Elderly, Women and Adolescents in Germany in 1995, and the establishment of a special family policy unit in the Ministry of the Interior in the United Kingdom in 1997, which is responsible for family welfare, family support and family protection.
The second is the cash subsidy policy, including maternity allowance, child allowance, maternity allowance, childcare allowance, parental allowance and other incentive effects on fertility behavior are obvious. For example, newborns in Singapore can get the government's cash subsidy, that is, "baby bonus", and the subsidy standard increases with the number of children, in addition to childcare allowance, early childhood allowance and so on.
Another example is Russia's introduction of cash subsidies for multi-child families in 2007, the "Mother Capital" project, which has been effective. In 2015, Sweden's household welfare expenditure accounted for 3.5% of the country's GDP, and its fertility rate also reached about 1.85.
The third is tax breaks, and with policies that encourage having more children, many countries are constantly raising the baseline for paying personal income tax. In addition to cash subsidies, Singapore also has many tax benefits, such as child exemptions and tax deductions for working mothers' children.
Fourth, in terms of childcare, some countries have implemented a free policy from nursery schools to universities, such as Japan's implementation of free preschool education, while about 1/3 of children in the entire EU countries can be cared for in nurseries and kindergartens.
At this stage, I think it is worth learning from the establishment of public childcare and early childhood care institutions, as well as the implementation of the policy of extending the compulsory education period as soon as possible. In addition, in terms of tax housing, it is hoped that preferential policies for families with multiple children can be established as soon as possible.
However, while learning from these experiences, the mainland must act according to its ability, and it must be localized in the process of learning.
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