One stone stirs up a thousand waves.
The long-awaited 2023 birth population data has finally come out, 9.02 million, which is the report card handed over by 1.4 billion people, although it is higher than the previous forecast data on the Internet, but it is still down 5 percentage points from the previous year, only about 48% of the population born in 2016, a drop of more than half.
Behind the absolute figures, there is a harsher comparison: the total fertility rate of 1.0 is not only far lower than the 1.5 of advanced economies, but also lower than that of Japan, which has a serious aging population, ranking second to last in the world, and the fertility rate of 6.39% is also the lowest level since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
The problem now is that the trend of declining fertility rates has not reversed, and judging from the comments on the Internet, the feeling of not daring to have children and not wanting to have children is still relatively strong, and if this trend continues, I don't know how far it will fall. Even the relatively optimistic population development report released by the National Research Center on January 16 shows that the number of births is expected to fall by 1 million every 10 years in the future, maintaining a downward trend for a long time.
Seeing this situation, many people can't sit still, judging from the comments on the Internet, the reason why everyone is not born is because of the "four mountains":
1. Housing prices are too high.
Although housing prices have been adjusted in the past two years, according to the latest data from the statistics department, the average price of newly built commercial houses in the mainland is about 10,500 yuan per square meter, and it also takes more than 1 million yuan to buy a set of 100 square meters of average price three rooms. Some people say, isn't our home ownership rate 96 percent now? Everyone basically has no shortage of houses, so what does it have to do with having children? In fact, although many people may not buy houses, 200 million families have to repay 38 trillion yuan in mortgages. Moreover, according to the traditional concept of having a house to have a home, if you have a child and prepare a house, the pressure on your subsequent life can be imagined.
2. Education too volume.
On the surface, the fees charged by the public office in the compulsory education stage are very small, but in order to give their children a good future, parents have to find another way and report various cram schools outside. In the past two years, the state has rectified extracurricular training, but there is still more private training, and due to the high risk, the fees charged are more than before. Usually you have to make up classes, you have to open a small stove during the winter and summer vacations, and you have to make up a lot before going to school, and the cost is higher than the other. So some people have calculated that it seems that it costs a lot of money to buy a house, but if you really train a child for more than 10 years, most of the houses will basically be built, and you don't know what good results can be achieved.
3. Medical care is too expensive.
I believe everyone has a feeling about this question. Not to mention a serious illness, it is a cold disease that is prevalent every winter, and after a process of treatment, 1,000 or two days is normal. Moreover, for raising children, there may be more than one cold a year, which is a hard expense. Of course, if you have a child, if the parents have any illness, they generally don't dare to run to the hospital, you can not eat grass, but you must produce milk, and you dare not go to work or lose your job. What is not sick, nothing is not money, it is the parents of the children.
4. Old age is insecure.
Our economy has indeed achieved remarkable results, and living conditions are many times better than in the past. But the reality is that we are not rich enough to spend the rest of our lives on an ordinary retirement salary, otherwise the state would not have been arranging for delays in advancing the work. According to the trend of pension level substitution, not to mention delaying retirement at the age of 65, if you look at it in the longer term, it is possible to retire at the age of 70. This is actually what people often say "getting old before getting rich", when you reach retirement age, you can't continue your previous standard of living with a pitiful pension, and you have to come out to work. The more children are born, the more the elderly may subsidize the children, who dares to have more children?
The problems that the common people can see, the country can naturally see clearly. Following the liberalization of two-child births in 2016 and three-child births in 2021, two major steps have been liberalized in just five years, indicating that the country is very anxious about the continuous decline in fertility. The purpose of liberalization is very clear, that is, to improve the population structure, alleviate the declining trend of comprehensive fertility, and promote sustainable economic and social development. In August 2023, the National Standing Committee adopted guidance on planning affordable housing, focusing on working families with housing difficulties and low incomes, and gradually covering other groups. In the eyes of the industry, in the face of high housing prices, this is an important measure for the state to support childbirth.
It can be said that the current birth policy is very relaxed, and under the guidance of the state, all localities give money, materials, and policies in order to let everyone dare to have more children. For example, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province will give subsidies for the birth of one child, two children, and three children, with a maximum subsidy of 12,000 yuan per year for two children, and a maximum subsidy of 24,000 yuan per year for those who have three children. There are also after-school care services, a 3% subsidy for the purchase price of a two-child family, and a subsidy of up to 300,000 yuan for those who have three children. Wenzhou is just a microcosm of other cities in the country that support childbirth.
However, although the policies to encourage and support fertility from top to bottom have continued, the results, as shown in the data at the beginning of this article, have not stopped the trend of the fertility rate from hitting new lows. To put it bluntly, as mentioned earlier, the "four mountains" that are pressing on families of childbearing age have not been fundamentally solved or that the intensity is not enough. To this end, population expert Liang Jianzhang put forward a new proposal, which was unanimously approved by netizens.
After the statistics department released the latest birth data, Liang Jianzhang wrote an article entitled "Is the Serious Birthrate Decline a Family or a State Affair?" (he has also written reports many times before, and some of the recommendations have actually been adopted by policymakers). In his view, the ultra-low fertility rate will have many negative consequences for the country, dragging down the country's financial and economic vitality, so having children is a family affair and a state affair. It is not enough to rely on local support for childbirth, and it is more appropriate for fertility-related welfare policies to be introduced at the central level. To this end, he put forward a proposal for fertility policy benefits, including 10 contents, a total of more than 1 million subsidies + other support, and the reasons listed in each article will not be presented, and the dry goods will be listed directly:
1. Cash subsidy. Referring to France and Germany, one-child, two-child, and three-child families will be subsidized by 1,000, 3,000, and 6,000 per month for 20 years;
2. Individual income tax reduction and exemption and social security reduction. Families with 2 children will be halved, and families with 3 children will be exempted;
3. The housing purchase subsidy includes two parts, one is the mortgage interest, which is 50% for two-child families and full for three-child families. The other is a discount for buying a house, with one-child, two-child, and three-child families buying a house at 9%, 7, and 5% respectively;
4. Build additional nurseries. Referring to France, in order to increase the enrollment rate of infants under the age of 3 in the mainland to 50%, more than 100,000 nursery schools should be added;
5. Introduce a policy of maternity leave that is relatively equal between men and women.
In addition, he also suggested advocating flexible work, so that men can spend more time sharing housework and taking care of children, introducing foreign nannies, supporting the development of assisted reproduction, protecting the rights and interests of single-parent families, abolishing the high school entrance examination and shortening the school system, and implementing 10 years of free compulsory education, so as to reduce the burden on families and society, start a family early, and help increase the fertility rate.
It can be seen that Liang Jianzhang's proposal has a clear pertinence and practical significance. Therefore, judging from the comments and likes of netizens, I think it is on the heart, some netizens said that if it can really be realized, I believe that the downward trend of fertility will be reversed, and some families who are afraid of birth will change their concepts to join the list of children, and some families who are still hesitating to have one more will rest assured that they will have 2 or 3 children.
In fact, in the face of the four major pressures of childbirth, Liang Jianzhang's proposal has solved two on the surface, namely high housing prices and education. In fact, although the latter two pressures are not mentioned, we can imagine that if a family does not have the pressure of housing and education, under normal circumstances, it should not be difficult to have a hard pension and medical expenses, but the latter should increase reform efforts to make medical expenses cheaper, and even implement free medical care.
Of course, some netizens raised doubts that if you have to make up more than 1 million yuan for giving birth to a child, where will the money come from? This determines the question of whether the proposal can be realized. In this regard, Liang Jianzhang calculated an account:
The total amount of fiscal expenditure required for the birth support policy is estimated to be about 4% of GDP, but it is necessary. 4% of GDP is about 5 trillion, and the average family with children awards 1 million sounds like a lot of money, but it is very necessary, affordable, and has good short-term and long-term returns.
To be honest, the author also basically supports Liang Jianzhang's suggestion, the reason is very simple, population is the future of the country, no matter how high the expenditure, as long as it can reverse the decline in fertility and bring the new population back to a normal level, the so-called prosperity of the people is the prosperity of the country, all of which are worth investing.