The founding father of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew In 2012, he said: "If the downward trend of fertility rate cannot be reversed, Singapore will collapse."
"The situation is very serious now, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a national crisis!" As early as September 2018, then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also shocked everyone in the parliament. What he mentioned is the national crisis, which refers to Japan's low fertility rate.
birth rate decreases is a common phenomenon around the world, especially in developed countries. The biggest impact of the birth population is the deterioration of the population structure. There are more elderly people who enjoy retirement benefits, and too few young people who work hard to pay taxes, and the government's fiscal revenue and expenditure will be seriously short of.
How to encourage citizens to have more children? Over the years, all major and small officials in the global political circles have been worried and have been constantly increasing their efforts to introduce various new policies, but the fertility rate has been declining again and again. Many people even believe that these policies are "ineffective" or even "failed".
Germany: High money encourages no solution
German society has always been worried about the low fertility rate, and encourages fertility measures mainly include childbirth allowances, childbirth leave and childbirth.
Germany's childcare allowance has been widely popular since its implementation in 2007. The characteristic of German childcare allowance is that parents can receive it. The amount depends on the income. High-paying people can receive 65% of their original salary, low-paying people can receive 100%. Parents can receive up to 14 consecutive months together, and the government spends 7.3 billion euros per year.
Parenting leave refers to parents who can apply to their employer for a job-reserve suspension before their children turn 3 years old and take care of their children at home.
Children's money simply means that the more you give birth, the more subsidies you have. Starting from January 2020, the German government stipulates that the first two children can receive a subsidy of 204 euros (more than 1,600 yuan) per month. If you have a third child, you will get 210 euros per month, and if you have a fourth or fifth child, you will get a subsidy of 235 euros per month. For this reason, the German government's total expenditure in 2019 reached 38.8 billion euros.
In the past, there was a huge difference in the popularity of kindergartens between East West Germany. The reason is that the Christian culture in West Germany encouraged mothers to take care of their children at home, and the socialist communist East Germany encouraged women to find employment and sent their children to kindergartens early.
In recent years, the concept of child care in the east and west has gradually flattened, and the proportion of children under 3 years old to kindergarten increased significantly from 17.6% in 2008 to 35% in the first quarter of 2020. It is a national consensus that Guangfa Kindergarten allows women to take into account both their family and their work.
Take Berlin, the largest city with a population of 3.7 million, as an example. There are 2,700 kindergartens in the city that can provide 170,000 childcare services for children aged 1 to 6 years old, and the costs are all borne by the government and are welcomed by young parents.
However, the phenomenon of minus birth rate in Germany has not improved significantly in the past 10 years.
Singapore: You graduate and I will find a partner for you, and I will pay for you when you date
More and more young Asians are unwilling to get married or have children, which is particularly serious in Singapore.
As early as more than 30 years ago, the Singapore government realized the population crisis and began to spread a variety of ways to encourage young people to get married and have children: after graduation, I will find a partner for you, I will pay for you when you date, I will pay for you when you have children...
In 1984, the Singapore government established the SDU (Social Development Agency), with the goal of "promoting marriage, establishing a cultural concept, so that singles can regard marriage as one of the most important goals in life." Before the promulgation of the relevant bill on personal privacy rights, every Singapore university graduate will automatically become a member of the SDU.
Singaporeans are increasingly reluctant to get married.
SDU once had more than 100 staff members. When the work was launched in the first year, SDU spent nearly $300,000, which led to only two marriages. But by the beginning of 2000, SDU claimed that it had led to marriages of 30,000 lovers.
By 2008, the SDU stopped operating and was reorganized into an SDN with only 7 staff members. It no longer held dating events on its own, but instead supported and supervised private institutions. Among the more than 100 dating institutions in Singapore, about 10 were selected.
SDN and these private institutions launch huge dating activities twice a year. As long as you register and participate, you can get a bonus of S$100.
Since 2015, the reward for having children in Singapore has increased from S$6,000 to S$8,000. With other subsidies for newborns, the total reward for giving birth to the first child has reached S$14,000 (approximately RMB 68,000). If you are willing to have a second or third child, the government will have more rewards.
In 2017, the Singapore government introduced a new method. Fathers who are born on and after January 1 can enjoy two weeks of government subsidized paid paternity leave. In addition, starting from July 1, fathers can also share four weeks of maternity leave from their mothers for 16 weeks of paid maternity leave.
Even so, Singaporeans are still increasingly reluctant to get married. Faced with the continued severe "baby shortage", Singapore can only introduce a large number of immigrants, and currently more than 40% of Singaporeans are migrants.
South Korea: loan of 100 million won does not need to pay back?
The number of deaths in South Korea exceeded the number of births for the first time in 2020, and the population showed negative growth.
The South Korean government established the Social Committee for Low Birth and Aging more than 10 years ago. Since 2006, the South Korean government has issued the Basic Plan for Low Birth and Aging every five years and has successively invested 185 trillion won to encourage fertility, but the number of newborns is still declining year by year. The total fertility rate is still ranked last among the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and is also at the lowest level in the world.
To encourage childbirth, Changwon City, South Korea recently proposed a government subsidy plan called "Marriage Dream Theory".
On December 15, 2020, the South Korean government finalized the "4th Basic Plan for Low Fertility Rate and Aging Society". Starting from 2022, you will receive 2 million won (about 12,000 yuan) of prenatal cash subsidy for every child, and provide 300,000 won parenting subsidy for families with babies aged 0 to 1 year old, and gradually increase it to 500,000 won in 2025.
In addition, the new policy also introduces the "3+3 parental leave" system, that is, both parents apply for 3 months of parental leave for children under 12 months, and each person can receive a maximum childcare allowance of 3 million won per month, in order to encourage "both husband and wife to raise their children together."
In order to encourage childbirth, Changwon City, South Korea recently proposed a government subsidy plan called "Marriage Dream Theory". If a newlywed couple borrows 100 million won at the time of marriage, interest will be exempted when giving birth to one child after marriage, and 30% of the loan exemption for giving birth to two children will be cancelled.
Japan: 40 years old can get 600,000 yen
In 2019, the number of newborns in Japan was only 865,000, setting a record low. On the other hand, Japan's aging rate has reached 28.7%, and the population over 65 years old is as high as 36.17 million.
In recent years, Japan has exhausted its efforts to increase its population.
Japan's fertility benefits are already very generous. For example, the prenatal examination is free. After four months of pregnancy, women can receive a subsidy of 420,000 yen (about 26,000 yuan), and there is no limit on the number of fetals; the salary of women during pregnancy and childcare vacations is subsidized by the government; from the birth of a child to the graduation of middle school, the government's childcare costs are usually around 15,000 yen. In addition, as long as parents pay national insurance, the child's medical treatment and surgery fees before the age of 15 will be greatly exempted, and some areas can even exempt them until high school graduation. In addition, Japanese kindergartens, primary schools, junior high schools, high schools and even universities have implemented policies on free admission and tuition exemption to varying degrees, and the burden on Japanese people to raise children has actually been greatly reduced.
In order to further encourage young people to get married, the Japanese government has recently issued another money.
The Japanese Cabinet Office announced on September 20, 2020: Starting from April 2021, newlyweds living in areas implementing the "Newly Married Subsidy Plan" can receive a subsidy of up to 600,000 yen to cover rent and other expenses.At the same time, Japan's central finance will bear two-thirds of the expenditure of the "New Marriage Subsidy Plan" starting from 2021.
However, under various real money and silver stimulus policies, Japan's fertility rate has not improved.
Although economic subsidies are not significant in saving fertility rates, some studies even say that the average consumption of 10% of GDP as a subsidy can make each family have one more child, which is very costly. However, who dares to say that without the government's heavy investment to encourage having babies, the "baby shortage" in Germany, Japan, South Korea and other countries would not be more serious?
Since the full liberalization of the "second-child policy" in 2015, the number of births has rebounded, but it has not met expectations. The latest data from
shows that in 2019, China was born 14.65 million and died 9.98 million, with a net population increase of 4.67 million, and the natural population growth rate fell to 3.34%. This figure is the lowest value in the past 20 years. According to the Lu Jiehua, a professor of the Department of Sociology at Peking University, , it is estimated that China's population will show negative growth by 2027.
It is urgent to speed up the pace of having children, but under the heavy cost of education and medical care, pension burden, housing costs, and opportunity costs, many young people complained that "I gave birth to the country, who raised my children for me." Compared with the above countries, China's investment in supporting young people's marriage and childbirth is really limited.
I look forward to the Chinese government in the future to have better policies to help young people afford to give birth and raise children. (Editor: Wen Dongfang)
