Ren Zeping proposed: Send 3 trillion and give birth!
Ren Zeping, together with a number of experts, suggested that a 3 trillion birth subsidy be issued to urge young people to have children. In the past, it was a few-born eugenics, but now it is a multi-birth-to-protect country. Who has the final say on whether we have children or not? Is there any one who is reliable? Why do young people nowadays not like to have children? Can giving money increase young people's willingness to have children?
In many developed countries, there is a maternity subsidy. Let's talk about South Korea, as long as you are a Korean, for every child you have, you will receive a subsidy of 26 million won, equivalent to 140,000 yuan. The average monthly salary in South Korea is about 20,000 yuan, considering that most front-line workers earn less than the average wage, but at least about 16,000 yuan. Although South Korea's prices are relatively high, 140,000 is not a small number, but why is South Korea's fertility rate still the lowest in the world?
In Japan, too, in order to promote birth, the restrictions on infant subsidies have been lifted, and they have been directly expanded to 0-year-old babies to 18-year-old high school students, with a monthly subsidy of 10,000 yen, equivalent to about 500 yuan. In the case of families with more than three children, the additional allowance will be added. This is only a subsidy from the Japanese government, and local governments such as Tokyo and Osaka have additional subsidies. For example, in Osaka, whether it is a private school or a public school, whether it is a wealthy family or an ordinary family, high school and university will gradually become free, just to reduce the burden of childcare and encourage Japanese families to have more children. However, in 2022, the number of newborns in Japan fell below 800,000, a record low, while the number of deaths exceeded 1.56 million.
Under the East Asian model, China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore are all facing the same demographic crisis. In developed countries, with the exception of the United States and Israel, almost all of them have the problem of aging populations. Israel's population is not aging because Israel has annexed 2 million Arabs, and the United States has absorbed a large number of immigrants from all over the world, especially from Latin America, to supplement the shortage of young people in the United States.
In the sixties and seventies of the last century, France also faced the crisis of an aging population. France's choice is to absorb North African immigrants. But now, white France is slowly aging, and nearly half of the young new birth population is black. After more than half a century of development, France is not only facing racial contradictions, cultural conflicts, but also deepening the aging crisis. France's pensions are almost unable to support the elderly in France, and the pension reform that Macron is determined to promote has been met with crazy resistance. The UK is even more exaggerated, because there are too many childcare subsidies, and there are special birth and maintenance subsidy households. If you don't go out to work, you give birth to children at home and use the subsidy to support the whole family.
Childcare subsidies are investments, but for families and countries, it is first and foremost consumption. What is investment? It is to invest a small amount of money and obtain a high return, which is called investment. If you give a lot of money and get a small return, it is called consumption.
The cost of childcare cannot be passed on to the national treasury, and most of it will be borne by young people after all. But what is the problem we are facing now? Not only the problem of high cost of childcare, but also the problem of high cost of old-age care. If the wool comes out of the sheep, where do the childcare funds and pension funds come from? Don't they still have to come from taxes? Look at the high-welfare countries in the world, which one is not a high tax? If it is only difficult to raise children, then the development fund is enough, but what about the old-age pension? What about housing? What about medical treatment? What about going to school? None of these are easy.
After the money is settled, where will the time come from? Is there a guarantee for weekends and holidays? Is there a guarantee for the eight-hour work week? After all this is guaranteed, where will the competitiveness of the industry come from? Will the manufacturing industry be transferred and lost? Will India's demographic dividend and Vietnam's demographic dividend rob our manufacturing industry? These are not things that can be solved by subsidies for children.
Today's young people's concept of parenting has also changed, and they are no longer willing to work hard and involution desperately for the sake of parenting. For today's China, many people are not unable to raise children, but they are unwilling to suffer for their children. If you give birth to one baby or two babies, you will have to get up early and work in the dark, dare not be unemployed, dare not travel, dare not consume highly, your sense of happiness will decline sharply, and the quality of life cannot be guaranteed, so young people will not want to give birth.
Even if you get married, you have to go out for a few years first, and then bear the pain of childbirth when the waves are enough. Raising a baby is not only an investment, but also a burden. The extension of childbearing age and the decline of childbearing willingness are not only a matter of money, but also an uncompromising attitude towards a high-quality life, and they do not want their children to suffer with themselves after they come out. Many people call this lifestyle of "earning and spending as much" as "pseudo-refinement". But "pseudo-exquisite" people, why don't they want to get a real exquisite life?
There is a strong correlation between the strength of fertility intentions and confidence in the future. The better the income expectation, the stronger the desire to have children. If income expectations are full of uncertainty and there is not enough confidence in the quality of life in the future, the desire to have children will inevitably waver.
Childbirth is not something that can be solved by simply giving money, but requires a package. Money has to be sent, but not just money. In the process of distributing money, can the subsidy be guaranteed to be paid? Will there be fraud? How many people have applied for Zhengzhou's birth subsidy?
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