Improve the system of protecting and improving people's livelihood
Editor's note: The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out that ensuring and improving people's livelihood in the process of development is a major task of Chinese modernization. China Economic Times invited well-known experts in related fields to interpret in depth that ensuring and improving people's livelihood is the basic institutional guarantee for maintaining social fairness and enhancing people's well-being, an important institutional arrangement for promoting economic and social development and realizing that the broad masses of people can share the fruits of reform and development, and a major issue in governing the country and security. With the promotion of further deepening reform in an all-round way, everyone expects that the "big net" of China's social security will become denser and tighter.
The mainland has built the world's largest and most functional social security system and woven the world's largest social protection network. However, compared with the second centenary goal in the new development stage of the mainland, the development of social security in the mainland is facing many challenges.
■Chen Guangjin
Social security is the basic institutional guarantee for ensuring and improving people's livelihood, safeguarding social fairness, and enhancing people's well-being, and is an important institutional arrangement for promoting economic and social development and realizing that the broad masses of the people can share the fruits of reform and development. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) pointed out that safeguarding and improving people's livelihood in the process of development is a major task of Chinese modernization.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the mainland has continuously strengthened the construction of a modern social security system. At present, the mainland has built the world's largest and fully functional social security system and has woven the world's largest social protection network. This is one of the greatest achievements in the development of the mainland's people's livelihood in the past 10 years or so. However, compared with the second centenary goal in the new development stage of the mainland, the development of social security in the mainland is facing many challenges.
Due to the institutional obstacles faced by flexible employment groups such as farmers and new business practitioners, the goal of full social security coverage has not yet been fully achieved, and the social security coverage rate of farmers and flexible employment personnel is relatively low. According to the survey data, from the perspective of the employment status of workers in new forms of employment, the workers who can be included in the traditional employment security system and the workers who cannot be included are roughly half, and strengthening the protection of the employment rights and interests of these half who cannot be included is the key to continuously improving the employment quality of new forms of employment.
The social security system is not systematic, the stability is insufficient, and the system convergence is not sufficient, which affects the efficiency. The lack of systematic logic and design arrangement in the top-level design makes the connection between the internal parts not smooth, and the fragmented system makes the policy effect in practice have a certain crowding out effect, which makes the policy effect inadequate. The dual pattern of urban and rural areas has a continuous impact on the systematization and fairness of the social security system, which makes the effectiveness of social security in regulating income distribution and narrowing the income gap insufficient, resulting in the problems of insufficient fairness and weak mutual assistance in the social security system. There are barriers in the pension system of the public sector and the private sector, and the gap between the pension treatment of employees of government institutions and enterprises is prominent; It is difficult to adapt to the current situation of high population mobility in the process of urbanization, and the transfer and non-local settlement system needs to be improved. The single-employer system makes it difficult for flexible workers to obtain adequate protection from workers' compensation insurance.
In the context of demographic transformation and continued aging, the social security fund is still facing certain pressure to balance revenues and expenditures, and the narrow investment channels and single way lead to the value preservation and appreciation function of the social security fund needs to be strengthened, and the lack of quantifiable incentive mechanism and risk control indicators in fund management makes the fund's anti-risk and payment ability to be improved.
The pandemic has added many uncertainties to the sustainable development of social security funds. On the one hand, the impact of the epidemic on economic growth and employment has led to a decline in the employment rate and labor force participation rate, resulting in a decline in the number of contributors and the contribution base. On the other hand, a series of social security contribution reduction and exemption policies introduced to maintain economic development have reduced the income of the social security fund. The aftermath of the epidemic has also caused changes in the expenditure of the social security fund, which will have a long-term impact on the balance of the fund.
As the third pillar of the pension system, as of the end of June 2023, the number of people who have opened personal pension accounts in 36 pilot cities across the country has reached 40.3 million, but only more than 9 million people have completed the fund storage, and the actual number of contributors is only 31.37% of the number of participants; The total amount of storage is 18.2 billion yuan, and the per capita storage is 2,022 yuan, accounting for only 1/6 of the annual payment limit of 12,000 yuan.
The quality of social insurance participation is not high. The participation rate of employee pension insurance and medical insurance is low, because the vast majority of flexible employment personnel and migrant workers choose resident insurance, and the resident insurance treatment is even lower than the subsistence standard, which is not enough to relieve the pension and medical worries of the insured. The redistributive role of social security is weak. According to the statistics of countries such as the European Union or the OECD, the mainland's social security expenditure accounts for only about 13% of the gross domestic product (GDP), far lower than the level of more than 20% in the EU or OECD countries. All these factors are important reasons restricting residents from expanding consumption. The key to promoting the coordinated development of the economy and society lies in how to increase the intensity of redistribution, strengthen the function of mutual assistance and mutual assistance, and bring more workers into the social security system.
Proceeding from the goal of promoting common prosperity for all the people, the mainland should further improve the social security system with full coverage, and include migrant workers, flexible employment personnel, and other groups in the social security system. To this end, the social insurance system should make more accurate attribute identification and identification, and adapt to the diversified social security needs of different industries through innovative and differentiated institutional arrangements.
In view of the above problems, the following countermeasures and suggestions are proposed.
Further expand the coverage of social insurance and promote the high-quality development of social security. In the future, China's social security system still needs to further expand its coverage and enrich the level of security on the existing basis, meet the needs of different industries and different groups of people, and establish a multi-level and comprehensive social security system. We will do a good job of expanding the coverage of social security for key groups such as those who are flexibly employed and those who are employed in new forms of employment, strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of workers in flexible employment and new forms of employment, protect the rights and interests of workers, and explore the establishment of an occupational injury protection system for flexibly employed persons. Through the establishment of a system of full coverage of work-related injury insurance, we will continue to promote work-related injury insurance participation according to projects. At the same time, we can improve efficiency through digital information technology and big data empowerment, realize accurate management of insurance, expand the scope of insurance, improve security capacity, and increase the actual participation rate of social security, with the goal of "covering the whole people" to achieve the inclusive requirements of social security.
We will further integrate the social security system and achieve social equity. In the future, China's social security system still needs to further integrate and optimize the institutional system on the existing basis, plan various systems from the perspective of top-level design, and coordinate the current fragmented system under the framework of the rule of law, so as to promote the fairness of the social security system. Specifically, it is necessary to establish an integrated and equalized social security system between urban and rural areas, and eliminate the phenomenon of social security division and overall planning by improving the overall level, so as to narrow the treatment gap between urban and rural areas and between groups. At the same time, on the premise of considering the current level of economic and social development, the level of social insurance benefits should be further improved, and the mechanism for social insurance financing and treatment adjustment should be implemented.
Establish and improve the value preservation and appreciation system of the social security fund, improve the self-balancing mechanism and supervision system of the social insurance fund, and realize the sustainable development of the social security fund. In order to ensure the stable operation and long-term accumulation of social security funds, China needs to improve the implementation of the financing and treatment adjustment mechanism to ensure that all social security benefits are paid on time and in full. In the future, we should establish and improve the value preservation and appreciation system of the social security fund, and enhance the value preservation and appreciation function of the social security fund through deepening reform. First of all, we should strengthen the operation of the fund balance, broaden diversified investment channels, and optimize the investment structure to improve the cumulative balance investment rate of return and enrich the social security fund. Secondly, the rule of law should be taken as the guarantee, the risk prevention and control system should be improved, the responsibilities and powers of relevant subjects in the process of fund operation and supervision should be clarified, the system of social security laws and regulations should be improved, and the standardization, uniformity and binding nature of the system should be enhanced. Finally, it is necessary to strengthen the security of the fund, improve the supervision system, and improve the "four-in-one" risk prevention and control mechanism system of policy, handling, information and supervision.
We should deeply grasp the requirements of the aging and demographic transformation on the social security system, improve the level of security for the elderly, optimize the birth support policy system, and promote the balanced development of the population. We will continue to vigorously develop the old-age security business and improve the level of old-age services. Improve the childbirth support service system, promote the reform of the maternity insurance system, promote the construction of a childbirth-friendly society, and promote the balanced development of the population.
(The author is director and researcher of the Institute of Sociology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Chief Producer丨Wang Hui and Che Haigang
Producer丨Li Piguang, Chen Bo, Wang Yu
Editor-in-Chief丨Mao Jinghui Editor丨Chen Shuhan