Social Science Series, No. 5, 2023, pp. 97-104.
【Research on Social Policy and Social Security】
China's Path to the Development of Family Policy in the New Era
——Based on the perspective of negative population growth
Hu Zhan
At present, the mainland has tended to enter a stage of development with negative population growth. The core of the governance of negative population growth is to effectively respond to the aging of the low birthrate, and one of the key to its practice is to solve the problem of "one old and one small" in the family, which involves the family construction of the whole population life cycle. The Chinese family has a unique governance value, which presents the Chinese and social governance structure as a balanced three-way model of "state-society-family", and plays the role of intermediary and buffer in the specific practice of state and social governance. Paying attention to and supporting the family should become one of the key and prominent characteristics of the mainland to actively cope with negative population growth and low birthrate and aging, and the current development of family policies should avoid the individualistic family view. In the pattern of population development, to identify and implement the problem of "one old and one small", we should build a family-friendly society to empower families, coordinate issues such as marriage and childbirth promotion and aging response, and then form a Chinese path for family development in the new era.
[keywords] family policy; negative population growth; Declining birthrate and aging; One old and one young; New era
National Natural Science Foundation of China (72274039)
Hu Zhan, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Institute of Aging of Fudan University.
[Classification Number] C913 [Document Identification Code] A [Article Number] 1001-6198 (2023) 05-0097-08
The family is one of the most tender institutions in human society, and it is also the original tradition of Chinese society. [1] In the wave of modernization and globalization, although families nested in demographic changes and wrapped in socio-economic changes and cultural transformations still maintain their relative stability, they may have morphological swimming or functional evolution or generation mechanism circulation, which has aroused widespread concern from all walks of life. Family policy research on a global scale has also experienced rapid development, especially with the rise of the concept of governance and the deepening of its research practice, whether it is the reflection of European countries on "finding the family" or the increasing emphasis on "family building" in China in the new era, the family is gradually being enriched in the vision of governance, and is no longer limited to the instrumental presentation of traditional family policy research. [2] Colorful new situations and phenomena have begun to question the traditional academic framework and practical experience, and there are many inconclusive ones. In this context, this paper identifies the linkage trend between population and family in the contemporary Chinese pattern, reflects on the governance status and specific value of Chinese families, and then explores the family policy situation under the influence of the negative population growth trend and the low birthrate and aging population, and looks forward to its development path and space.
First, negative population growth and Chinese family changes
As a country with a large population, China has experienced synchronic changes in population and households. China's family changes are synchronized with rapid demographic changes, almost all demographic events occur in families, and almost all family changes are ultimately reflected in the demographic pattern.
*Thanks to Dr. Sun Xin and Professor Zhang Zhen for their important contributions to this paper.
The population change of a country or region is mainly built by the three factors of birth, death and migration. International migration of the continent has remained low, with population dynamics largely influenced by births and deaths. In 2000, the net increase in mainland population fell for the first time to less than 10 million[1], in 2010 and 2020 it was 6.41 million and 2.04 million, respectively, to 480,000 in 2021, and in 2022 it turned negative (9.56 million births and 10.41 million deaths), the first negative population growth since the 1960s, see Figure 1. On the one hand, the "single two-child" and "universal two-child" policies have released their fertility potential to a certain extent, and the number of annual births has continued to decline after rising to a phased peak (17.86 million) in 2017, and falling to less than 10 million in 2022. In the future, the postponed fertility due to the epidemic and other factors will gradually be realized, but the low fertility level of the mainland population has lasted for a long time, and the source of fertility risk focuses on "double low and one reduction", that is, low fertility rate, low fertility willingness and reduction of the population of childbearing age. Especially since the 1990s, the sharp decline in the number of births has rapidly reduced the number of "mothers" entering the golden childbearing age queue in the future (an average annual decrease of about 3 million women of childbearing age in the next 10 years), and this decline will continue at least until around 2045, coupled with the greater impact of delayed marriage and childbearing on the release of fertility potential, even if the fertility rate increases in the short term, it can only be limited in a certain period of time to weaken the decline in the number of births per year. In the next 30 years, the annual number of births will fall in the range of 9-10 million with a high probability. On the other hand, the aging level of the mainland has been rising since entering the aging society in 2000, but the age structure of the elderly population is relatively young, and the proportion of the initial elderly population aged 70 and below has always been large. As the baby boomer generation enters the advanced stage, the age structure of the elderly population is aging, and the number of deaths in the elderly population is growing rapidly. 2021 was the first year since the 1960s that the total number of deaths exceeded 10 million (about 10.14 million), of which about 76% of deaths from the elderly. In the future, with the deepening of aging, the number of deaths of the elderly in mainland China is expected to stabilize at more than 10 million after 2025, reaching a peak in the middle of the 21st century and hovering at a high level.
Figure 1 Annual births and deaths (2000-2050)
Source: National Bureau of Statistics Statistical Yearbook (2000-2020), February 10, http://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/ndsj/,2023.
It is not difficult to see that with the transformation of the mainland population from "high birth rate-low mortality rate-high growth rate" to "low birth rate-low mortality rate-low growth rate", the recent negative population growth is mainly manifested as "fertility-led negative growth", and the continuous acceleration of population aging will make the future may show a "dual-drive accelerated negative growth" that may appear in parallel with the decrease in births and the increase in deaths. In essence, negative population growth and population aging are two sides of population development, both of which are caused by the decline in family birthrate, they are the result of the long-term continuation of low fertility after the completion of the demographic transition, and intensified with the general increase in population life. Under the condition of the accumulation of negative population growth inertia, the main contradiction of China's current population development has turned into a low birthrate and aging, which will render the background of the population development strategy in the next few decades. Although the number of annual births in the future will fluctuate due to multiple factors, the annual number of births below the number of deaths will tend to manifest as a long-term trend.
The micro-mechanisms of this demographic dynamic can be examined from household changes. In the context of the increasing decline in birthrate and aging, the number of mainland households has grown rapidly, the scale has continued to shrink, and the structure has tended to be simplified. According to the census data, the size of households decreased sharply between 1990 and 2010, from nearly 4 in 1990 to 3.09 in 2010. Among them, the number of children aged 0-14 fell from 1.10 in 1990 to 0.51 in 2010, a decrease of more than half; the elderly population aged 65 and above increased from 0.22 in 1990 to 0.41; the household size in 2020 further dropped to 2.62, see Figure 2. Although the nuclear family is still the most important form of family in the mainland, with the large increase of single households and the maintenance of a large proportion of extended households, its pattern has changed from "core households as the mainstay, extended households as supplements, and single households supplemented" to the current "core households as the mainstay, single households supplemented by extended households". The trend of family aging and empty nesting is also becoming increasingly obvious, and the elderly living independently [2] and "multigenerational household" are listed as the main modes of current elderly living arrangements in mainland China. From 1982 to 2015, the proportion of three-generation households remained stable at about 16%-18%, and the cohabitation of grandparents and grandchildren was increasing, which not only permeated with a strong traditional intergenerational solidarity ethic, but also reflected the adaptive choice of families to cope with external constraints. After 2000, the proportion of elderly families living independently expanded rapidly to more than 30% of all elderly families, and then expanded to about 40% from 2010 to 2015. The primary reason is that a large number of children have entered higher education and have left home or migrated for work, and the secondary reason is that the improvement of economic standards and housing conditions has met the individual needs of some two-generation families. Of course, the increase in empty-nest elderly families does not necessarily mean that family ties are weakened. Our traditional multigenerational family ratio has not decreased, and a considerable number of urban empty nesters have children living nearby and maintaining a high level of contact, and this intergenerational living arrangement of "separate but not far away" highlights the phenomenon of family function networking. 〔3〕
Figure 2 Age composition of population with average household size (1982-2020)
Source: Based on previous census data, 10 February http://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/,2023.
Under the background of the accumulation of negative population growth and the intensification of the trend of low birthrate and aging, there are many significant economic and social drivers for the change of China's family model. First, large-scale population movements and urbanization loosen the territorialization of the population. In the era of planned economy, population migration faced many restrictions, and the result of this localization of population governance was that the state took over almost all population-related problems in a unitized way, that is, the so-called "cradle to grave", which brought huge welfare payment pressure to the state. With the gradual liberalization of the population flow control mechanism based on the hukou system, the passive "population" has become a dynamic "manpower", and its background tends to be dominated by "family-oriented goals", such as family relocation, family relocation, family relocation, marriage and marriage, work and business, etc., and the scale of the separated population across provinces/municipalities is much higher than the size of the separated population within the provincial/municipal districts. Second, the transformation of labor and employment patterns deconstructs traditional family relationships and family models. Changes in employment patterns and labor force participation patterns have reshaped contemporary social values. This process not only emphasizes personal achievement and economic independence, but also further contributes to increased social mobility. To a certain extent, this has dissolved the resilience of traditional kinship networks, and also made mainland family types show a trend of diversification, with a large number of non-traditional types of families such as intergenerational families, second-generation pure old families, Dinker families, single families, and single-parent families. Third, the education level of the population has been greatly improved, and social concepts and behavior patterns have been updated. The expansion of higher education has directly led to the delay of the age of first marriage and childbearing of the population, the increase in the number and cycle of single families and generation families, which has greatly affected their attitudes and behaviors towards fulfilling kinship obligations and forming families, and also promoted the spread of individualistic values. Of course, as far as the overall marriage model is concerned, the mainland is still a society of "universal marriage and universal education". Fourth, the social security system improves the regulation of family functions and intergenerational relations. Since the 90s of the 20th century, the mainland's social security system has undergone a process of transformation, improvement, expansion and reform. While the level of security has increased significantly, some family functions have shifted to the public sector, weakening some of the traditional functions of the family, especially in terms of economy and care, which also strengthens the exchange motivation in intergenerational exchanges to some extent. 〔4〕
The deconstruction and reconstruction of Chinese family experience in the midst of population flux, population changes are reflected in family changes, and the continuation and expansion of family models also reflect the self-adjustment and active survival of Chinese families in coping with external structural shocks. Although family functions have been weakened in the process of deepening the "low birthrate and aging", China's traditional family values and family relationship ties remain strong, and family changes and policy responses under the demographic transition are undergoing problems and breakthroughs.
Second, the governance function of Chinese families and specific policy values
Negative population growth and population aging are two sides of population development, and the core of governance of negative population growth is an effective response to "low birthrate and aging". In fact, the declining birthrate and aging are not isolated population phenomena, aging naturally wraps the declining birthrate, and it is impossible for any country or region to have a "multi-birthrate" aging. The current emphasis on "declining birthrate and aging" is mainly due to concerns about low fertility levels.
One of the keys to coping with the micro practice of "low birthrate and aging" is the problem of "one old and one small". The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee clearly pointed out that solving the problem of "one old and one small" is of great significance to ensuring and improving people's livelihood and promoting long-term balanced population development, and the "Proposal of the CPC Central Committee on Formulating the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives for 2035" more clearly requires that "the population service system be improved with the focus on 'one old and one small'", which has pointed out the core themes and work points of the mainland's current population governance and people's livelihood construction. What is particularly important is that there are old people and children in every family, and "one old" and "one small" are in the "family", revealing the two basic functions of the family - pension and childcare. Not only that, the roles of "children of the elderly" and "parents of children" coincide, and the completion of the function of old-age care requires the deep participation of young and middle-aged working-age groups in the family. In this sense, the topic of "low birthrate and aging" is actually a family problem in practice, involving the theme of family development throughout the life cycle of the whole population. No matter how much the times change, no matter how much the pattern of life changes, we must attach importance to family building and raise it to the height of "national development, national progress and social harmony", so that it becomes the fundamental compliance of the development of family policies in the new era. As the fundamental tradition of Chinese society, valuing and supporting the family should become a focus for the mainland to actively cope with negative population growth and "low birthrate and aging". In the process of negative population growth and "low birthrate and aging", how to re-examine and identify the status and value of contemporary Chinese families in the framework of national and social governance, so as to more effectively resettle families, position families, drive families, and support families to form self-consistent logic is the core of family policy research practice.
In order to overcome the structural impact of demographic and family change on socio-economic stability and individual life, family policy research on a global scale experienced rapid development after the Second World War. Family policy is actually a difficult to define and controversial concept, any definition may be influenced by ideology, the formulation and implementation of family policies in different countries reflect their governments' different understandings of family needs and are affected by the objective conditions of society at that time, is one of the perspectives, standards and even evaluation requirements adopted by the government when making social policy choices. Kamerman and Kahn famously argued that "social policy is family policy"[5], and Foucault even argued that the governance of the modern state is essentially "a kind of public housekeeping"[6] whose governance methods (public education, social welfare, etc.) and institutions (kindergartens, nursing homes, etc.) are externalized family functions. [7] Since the 1990s, with the rise of governance research and its deep correlation with "sustainable development" and "maximization of public interest", the orientation of focusing on the family as a governance tool or structural unit in family policy research has become increasingly apparent, and its national identity and cultural adaptability from the perspective of good governance.
Civilization is the sum of history, and each civilization has its own particularity and historical continuity. We are constantly moving towards Chinese-style modernization and striving to realize the modernization of national governance, and modernization is not only the product of technology and market, but also the product of history and culture[8], and we must build a governance pattern and policy model that inherits Chinese culture and conforms to China's national conditions and meets the requirements of modernization development. The Western system is a governance model based on individualism that is developed and constructed by "body-group" (individual-society) and weak by "family-society", and is dominated by the dual structure of "state-society" or "government-market" that is both cooperative and gamed, Figure 3A. Individualism in the West was once characterized by deconstructing the family, and the English word for "family" focused more on the "nuclear family", that is, a single couple or a single couple and their unmarried children. Supported by a modern social security system, this is the smallest form of family that can develop relatively stably and comprehensively without relying on blood or marriage networks, known as the "core". This kind of family form, which has less rigid kinship responsibilities or burdens, can relatively fully release productivity and individual initiative under the condition of protecting individual freedom, and has provided huge dividends for the development of modern Western society. Once friction occurs, it is easy to break through the barrier role of the family and manifest itself as a direct collision between national authority and individuals, which is also one of the inherent limitations and governance dilemmas of contemporary Western social development, such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the face of pension and other institutional pressure, once issued a call to "find the family".
Figure 3 Similarities and differences between Chinese and Western social governance structures
The situation in China is quite different. Historically, we have always been the strongest "country" and the second strongest "family", and "country" and "family" are not independent or parallel to each other. "Home is the smallest country, the country is tens of thousands", the micro-governance of "home" is extended to apply to the macro "country", and the individual's feelings for "home" are also projected on the "country", and this "home-country isomorphism" is one of the cultural cornerstones of Chinese civilization that has lasted for thousands of years. Chinese families do not emphasize husband and wife and marriage as in the West, but more on parent-child and bloodline. The Chinese family in the tradition of the family state is not only a unit of population reproduction and an economic unit, but also a unit of education, welfare and order. It not only undertakes the traditional responsibility of protecting its members, but also inherently regulates and restricts its members, and elevates it to a national governance mechanism and cultural moral tradition through ethics and institutions, which some scholars classify as associationism. [9] This makes China's social governance pattern present a specific three-element structure of "state-society-family" game equilibrium (Figure 3B), and its prominent feature or advantage is reflected in the fact that the family plays a mediating and buffering role for the interaction between the state, society and individuals, and the state and social governance thus gain valuable maneuver space or fault tolerance zone. [10] For example, when dealing with the pressure of old-age care in an aging society, Chinese has never shirked the family responsibility of "providing for the elderly" for their parents, a tradition that has both emotional meaning and ethical value, and even for the elderly, "spending children's money" and "spending the country's money" have completely different cultural connotations. Although the government, society and other governance entities are assuming more and more responsibilities in the construction of the pension system, Chinese families have not only stabilized the "basic plate" in this process, but also provided governance maneuver and even innovation space for the implementation of national policies.
In a sense, the three-element governance structure model of "state-family-society" game and balance is the deconstruction, reconstruction and expansion of the traditional "home-state isomorphism" model in the field of contemporary population and social governance. In the process of modernization, the relationship between the state and the individual and the population is increasingly based on the social contract, but the Chinese family is not absent. The Chinese family has an ontological status [11], which is not only the micro-foundation of national governance, but also dissolves the separation of government and society in the modern governance structure of the West. Although contemporary Western concepts of governance are also evolving, they are increasingly oriented towards a focus on the activities of non-state actors in governance, weakening state authority under neoliberalism and emphasizing social dominance and individual freedom. Different from the Western system, the socialist system with Chinese characteristics and the modernization pattern of national governance highly emphasize the centralized and unified leadership and national responsibility of the party, adhere to the people's mastery and people-centered development thinking, and adhere to and improve the social governance system of joint construction, co-governance and sharing. Although the Chinese government is constantly adjusting the relationship between national governance and social governance to achieve localized good governance, national governance has not changed its dominant position, but has only given social governance more authority and space, and the interaction between the two is more promoted by state forces, and often mediated or buffered by the family. This governance structure is rooted in the soil of Chinese civilization, which can form a steady stream of governance advantages and build a broad policy space for family development in the new era.
Third, the prospect of family policy research practice in the process of population modernization
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly pointed out that "Chinese-style modernization is modernization with a huge population" [12]. As the world's most populous country, population endowment is the core driving force and important driving force for the rapid economic and social development of the contemporary continent, and the emergence of negative population growth has aroused strong concern of the whole society, and its governance core is an effective response to "low birthrate and aging". The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to "implement the national strategy of actively coping with population aging", and the "Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People's Republic of China and the Long-term Goals for 2035" suggested that in the "implementation of the national strategy of actively coping with population aging", it is first clearly required to "formulate a long-term population development strategy and optimize the birth policy" [13]. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China juxtaposed "implementing the national strategy of actively coping with population aging" with "optimizing the population development strategy and establishing a fertility support policy system" [14], indicating that the governance of "low birthrate and aging" has risen to become a strategic development issue that reflects the will of the country at the highest level.
The micro-governance practice of "low birthrate and aging" focuses on the problem of "one old and one small", involving the development of the whole life cycle of the whole family population. By integrating the two generations from a family perspective, taking into account the real needs of the family, by providing resource support to the family rather than to the individual, the circulation of public resources through the family unit can be more effective, and policy bias can be avoided. Institutional support for families can play a typical radiation effect, that is, by improving family functions to achieve assistance in different welfare areas, such as old-age care, childbirth and upbringing, and protection for vulnerable family members. As the mainland enters a stage of high-quality development, the traditional governance space for direct intervention in population factors has shrunk sharply, and tends to pay attention to the influence of cultural forms, social concepts, and individual wishes on population behavior patterns. The mainland is not only a country with a large population, but also a country in culture. The mainland has the largest elderly population, the largest number of families, the deepest family cultural traditions and the social atmosphere of filial piety and love for the young, and family policies also have their specific advantages in optimizing the social environment and cohesion of social consensus.
(1) Establish a concept of family development throughout the life cycle of the population
To promote family development through family policies, we should not only start from the individual, but also attach importance to and mobilize the endogenous role of the family from a holistic perspective. Especially for contemporary Chinese society, which has entered the stage of high-quality development, the family no longer brings too many burdens and fetters to individuals, and the spiritual power provided by emotional interaction between family members has run through ancient times to the present, which is not only the driving force for individual struggle, but also can transport resources and provide buffer. Since the reform and opening up, behind China's rapid and high-quality development lies a large number of long-term mutual support between Chinese families, parents provide support in important matters such as helping their children share the responsibility of parenting and buying a house, and children provide financial support and care responsibilities when their parents face health problems. The family policy system should integrate the characteristics and needs of different age groups and form a response plan throughout the family life cycle. Most families often contain different generations of members, and the survival and development of one group can be achieved through policy investment in other groups, such as the health care of the elderly and the supervision of children's care can be improved by changing the health and parenting views of young people. Only by effectively identifying and organically integrating the family roles of different individuals can we truly give play to the protective role of the family on the individual and more effectively help the comprehensive response to the problem of "one old and one small".
In addition, the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Promotion of Family Education has begun to be implemented, and family education activities covering the effective connection from "childhood" to "growth" and from "birth" to "death" should be carried out on its basis. Extend the object of family education from minors in the family to parents and grandparents, expand the target range of family education from children's childhood, adolescence and adult child-rearing to the entire life cycle of people, and expand the scope of family education to the fields of ideological character, behavioral habits, parent-child relationship, and values, especially paying attention to the cultivation of the younger generation's views on marriage and childbirth, gender, aging and life and death.
(2) Strengthen family empowerment to effectively improve the sustainability of governance
The mainland is tending to enter a long-term process of negative population growth. To promote the formation of a new equilibrium under the condition of negative population growth, we should not only focus on the increase of population or the optimization of population structure, but should pay more attention to the comprehensive development of people to improve the quality of labor and the accumulation of human capital, that is, "quality for quantity" and "from demographic dividend to talent dividend". By promoting the higher-quality development of the "one old and one small" group to seek new growth space and tap new development potential, and by giving full play to good family functions to consolidate the environment conducive to the development of human capital, especially the new connotation of human capital in the new situation, such as children's social ability and spiritual quality, social participation of the elderly, etc., it is deeply related to the family. Contemporary China's population development, institutional changes and governance pattern evolution have put forward new requirements for the upgrading and empowerment of family functions, especially the need to integrate the actual needs of the "one old and one small" group from the perspective of the family and form policy innovations, such as giving families whose ancestors participate in child guardianship and giving them greater autonomy, so that they can flexibly choose retirement plans according to their own circumstances; In community construction, multiple facilities involving the care of young children and the elderly will be integrated spatially to meet the needs of multigenerational co-living and provide "respite services" for grandparents; Actively publicize the value of intergenerational care for the elderly, and affirm and encourage the contributions and significance of the elderly in child care, family development, and alleviating the pressure of social child-rearing; Allow social insurance to be appropriately transferred between family members and tilt towards elderly families, and further explore the feasibility of including family services such as long-term care for the disabled elderly in the scope of social insurance support.
In addition, in order to ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of family building and the response to the problem of "one old and one small", the possibility of strengthening its administrative mechanisms should also be discussed. At present, the issue of "one old and one small" has become the top priority of the mainland's people's livelihood construction, and it involves the long-term balanced development of the population and the implementation of the national strategy. It should be used as a starting point to set up an authoritative and normal coordinating body specializing in family affairs, integrate the relevant functions and resources of relevant systems from the institutional level, and provide stable institutional mechanisms and organizational guarantees for the overall response to the problem of "one old and one small", so as to carry out unified management, regulation and implementation of family policies under scientific overall planning and design.
(3) Build a family-friendly support system for marriage and childbirth
Recently, the real pain point of the implementation of the three-child birth policy is "can give birth≠ wants to give birth/dares to give birth". The fierce competition in Chinese society and the sharp rise in the cost of marriage and childbearing are one of the main crux of the low fertility intention of people of childbearing age, and the increase in late marriage and childbearing and even non-marriage and childlessness has an increasing impact on the fertility potential of people of childbearing age, and with the change of values and lifestyles of the younger generation, this trend will become more and more irreversible. It should be noted that unlike the previous liberalization of the "single two-child" and "universal two-child" policies, the "three-child birth policy" and "supporting measures" are juxtaposed in the policy expression, and special emphasis is placed on the integrated support of "marriage-childbirth-parenting", which reserves a lot of space for the development of family policies. However, it is also important to be aware that these follow-up support measures may be relatively effective for groups who "want to have children but dare not give birth", but may have little effect on groups that "do not want to have children at all" or even "do not want to marry at all". Improving the fertility willingness of people of childbearing age and fulfilling their fertility behavior is an important measure to cope with negative population growth and "low birthrate aging", but it is also a global problem, and the policy effect of various countries is not satisfactory. Judging from the recovery of fertility in Nordic countries and other countries, in contrast, it is one of the relatively effective ways to promote public services at the family unit to reduce the burden of family reproduction and parenting and focus on promoting gender equality to optimize the environment for women's development.
As the mainland population in the trough of birth in the 1990s enters the golden childbearing age period, the size of women of childbearing age will be greatly reduced in the next two or three decades, and it is an established fact that the annual birth number will continue to be sluggish. Even if the fertility rate picks up in the future, it will be a drop in the bucket to alleviate the declining birthrate and aging. Therefore, we need to consider the following points: First, gradually decouple the implementation goal of the birth policy from the increase in the number of births. Avoid using short-term rigid indicators to measure the optimization of fertility policies, but should pay attention to the improvement of marriage and childbearing willingness, the improvement of marriage and childbearing concepts, and the improvement of parenting quality on a medium and long-term scale, so as to build a family-friendly social environment. The second is to shift from emphasizing "multiple births" to focusing on "good nourishment". Paying attention to the improvement of the quality of children's development, especially left-behind children, disabled children, poor children in rural areas, etc., effectively changing their living conditions and family development environment is far more important than consuming a lot of social and economic costs to pursue a small increase in fertility in urban areas. The third is to avoid the accidental injury of fertility relaxation to women's development. The main body of childbearing is women, who will face more difficult choices in career development and parenting responsibilities in the context of loosening childbirth, and poor handling will cause long-term irreversible wear and tear on the cultural concept of marriage and childbirth and the social environment, which needs special attention from family policies and even the entire public policy system. The fourth is to guide and pay attention to the development of the younger generation's outlook on marriage and childbearing and family outlook. We should have more respect for the diversity of individual choices, but also guide the public spirit and public values in a targeted manner, and pay more attention to this in future family policies and marriage and childbearing measures.
(4) Explore China's plan for the governance of the aging society on the basis of strengthening family building
The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China decided to "implement the national strategy of actively coping with the aging of the population", and the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further emphasized the promotion. The national strategy is the highest level of national will, reflecting the major national strategic deployment, it is urgent to accelerate the breakthrough of research and practice on key topics and key areas, and how to form the "Chinese characteristics" and "Chinese plan" of the aging social governance model as soon as possible is undoubtedly the top priority.
Valuing and supporting the family should be one of the key and prominent features of China's active response to population aging. Although with the deepening of demographic and social changes, the function of contemporary Chinese families has been worn out in the process of "low birthrate and aging", intergenerational support from families is still an important source of pension resources for the elderly in mainland China. Traditional Chinese family ethics and culture have strong cohesion, and the traditional mutual aid network between family members (especially parents and children) continues to exist and develop in new forms, constituting an important feature of China's pension model. Not only that, the improvement of family functions (such as childbirth, parenting and education) is also crucial to the sustainable development of the future aging society, and it is also one of the hubs where the "state-society-family" three-way governance structure can play its advantages. Significant demographic and social transition costs have been and are being absorbed. However, unfortunately, the existing ageing system and even the entire public policy system, while emphasizing the important value of the family, more or less ignore the reality that "demographic-socio-economic" changes have led to the aggravation of family vulnerability, ignored the family's ability to bear, and underestimated the economic and social costs of the family in the elderly and childcare, so that Chinese families encounter multiple structural shocks in the aging society. Family policies to support the governance of the aging society can no longer be limited to local, departmental and technical policy adjustments, but should reconstruct China's existing family policies and family welfare allocation models on the basis of effectively evaluating the family's ability to resist risks and development potential, so as to improve the overall level of family policies. This puts forward a new proposition for the development and innovation of family policy in the new era.
In the context of the accumulation of negative population growth, whether the healthy and sustainable development of families will be directly related to whether Chinese families and Chinese society can successfully complete the historical transformation under the premise of "low birthrate and aging", which not only directly responds to national governance requirements and family development demands, but is more likely to provide Chinese experience and Chinese path for the world to cope with "low birthrate aging".
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[Responsible Editor: Li Yang]
- Unless otherwise specified, the data in this article are taken from the statistical yearbook of the National Bureau of Statistics. ↑
- The independent residence of the elderly is commonly known as empty nest elderly families, mainly including elderly families living alone and elderly couples living independently. ↑