Street talk
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the mainland's population growth rate will slow down in 2021, increasing by only 480,000 people over the end of the previous year. It is well known that the decline in the number of births is the result of a combination of factors, but the introduction of more active fertility support measures is clearly imminent. Children are easy to raise, the house is not enough to live, whether there is an old man to help bring, whether to "chicken" in the future education, whether it will be "rolled", are all head-scratching things, presumably the young parents in first- and second-tier cities in these years feel more deeply. This may also be the main reason why when the two-child policy was introduced, there was no shortage of friends who had the courage to try, but people with three-child ideas were rarely seen so far. In this context, the time for the two sessions in various places has been opened one after another this year, and whether it can find a way to crack it in it is undoubtedly worth focusing on.
At the two sessions of Guangdong Province, many deputies and members paid attention to relevant pain points. The government work report emphasizes the improvement of the multi-level social security system and the mechanism for determining and adjusting social security benefits, and puts forward the overall solution of "one old and one small". The content mainly includes strengthening the supply of inclusive old-age care and childcare services, improving the home-based community old-age service, promoting the adaptation of community public service facilities to the ageing, improving the three-child birth support policy, building a child-friendly city, and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of women and children; improving the social assistance system, steadily improving the level of security in urban and rural areas such as the minimum guarantee, the extremely poor, and the disabled; promoting the construction of affordable housing, and supporting the commercial housing market to better meet the reasonable housing needs of home buyers.
Some CPPCC members are ready to submit relevant proposals such as "if you want to have a child but can't have a child, can medical insurance be guaranteed" and so on. It is recommended that the basic medical insurance items in the treatment of fertility-related diseases be adjusted to include assisted reproductive technology in the scope of medical insurance. This is not unreasonable, and even quite urgent. After the implementation of the "two-child policy", the number of pregnant women over the age of 35 has increased, the rate of spontaneous abortion and pregnancy complications have shown an upward trend, and many factors have caused the weakening of the fertility of the mainland population, which directly leads to the imbalance in the number of people and the population structure. The committee member believes that if some assisted reproduction programs can be included in medical insurance, it is expected to increase the willingness of people of childbearing age to have children, so as to achieve the effect of increasing the birth rate of the population. Because according to the current medical insurance policy, infertility patients with infertility other than several specific diseases cannot enjoy medical insurance when they seek medical treatment in infertility and reproduction.
At the same time, basic examinations related to assisted reproductive technologies such as "IVF", basic treatment drugs and auxiliary technologies are all self-funded. Therefore, "in addition to encouraging normal births, it is recommended to adjust the basic medical insurance program as soon as possible and provide protection for the treatment of birth-related diseases." If there is a one-time difficulty, a step-by-step approach can also be adopted.
In addition, in view of the fact that many young dual-career families entrust 0-3-year-old infants and young children to grandparents and maternal grandparents in their hometowns to raise them, which is easy to form a new social phenomenon of left-behind children and the elderly, a deputy to the National People's Congress in Zhejiang submitted the "Proposal on Encouraging Capable Grandparents or Maternal Grandparents to Bring Babies to Urban and Rural Areas", suggesting that grandparents and maternal grandparents who meet the conditions and go to the children's location with grandchildren provide the same city resident treatment (off-site social security medical insurance, bus travel, etc.) and ladder rental subsidies to help solve the problem of "no one to bring children" Big problems to encourage young couples of childbearing age to have children.
It is believed that in addition to Guangdong and Zhejiang, similar suggestions or measures will be introduced in many other places. Prior to this, all localities have also generally extended maternity leave by 30-90 days, increased the development of inclusive childcare services, and protected the rights and interests of family planning families. As the relevant departments have stated, the slowdown in population growth is an objective result of the mainland's economic development, especially industrialization and urbanization to a certain stage. Aging and low birthrate are also common problems faced by developed countries and even some emerging economies. However, it is also an indisputable fact that the previous two-child birth policy has promoted the increase in fertility rate. Among the births, the proportion of second children rose from about 30% in 2013 to about 43% in 2021. Next, how the relevant departments guide the implementation of the three-child birth policy in various places and what kind of positive fertility support measures will undoubtedly be the key to the promotion of the policy.
(Wei Min, the author is a teacher at Shanghai Health Medical College)