At present, my country's population development is facing the dual pressure of the interweaving and superposition of "aging" and "little birth". The birth population continues to decline, from the small peak of 18.83 million after the full implementation of the two-child policy in 2016 to 12 million in 2020. The total fertility rate has dropped from above 1.7 to about 1.3, which has fallen below the international warning line. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China has established the active response to population aging as a national strategy and put forward important arrangements for "reducing the costs of childbirth, raising and education."
Based on this background, the Central Committee of the Workers' and Workers' Party of China, based on in-depth research, proposed the "Proposal on Improving the Popular Support Policy System to Promote Long-term Balanced Population Development" to the Fourth Session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. focuses on the effectiveness of the policy measures for fertility support, and put forward relevant suggestions on "economic support, service supply, and rights protection".
This proposal has been listed as one of the key proposals of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 2021. days ago, a consultation meeting on handling key proposals on improving the policy system for childbirth support was held at the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Representatives of the proposer of , relevant persons in charge of the organizer, some members and experts gathered together to discuss strategies for improving the birth support system around the new policy of "comprehensive three-child policy". participants said that it is advisable to work together to stimulate the willingness to "generate", solve the problem of "education", and reduce the burden of "raising" to strive to achieve policy expectations.
childcare supply: To have "have", "excellent", and "economic"
childcare services are related to the welfare of thousands of households. Strengthening childcare services is a basic project to promote the realization of moderate fertility levels and promote the long-term balanced development of my country's population.
All developed countries with relatively high fertility rates are working hard to strengthen childcare services. The popular childcare services have played a positive role in boosting their willingness to have children, supporting families with multiple children, and improving women's postpartum return rate. my country's childcare services are far from the growing needs of the people, the expectations of the industry, and the level of developed countries.
Yang Wenzhuang, Director of the Population Monitoring and Family Development Department of the National Health Commission, brought a set of data: At present, the total number of infants and young children under the age of 3 in my country is about 40 million, with a rate of enrollment in the 6% of the enrollment rate. Even in cities, the enrollment rate is less than 10%, which is far lower than the 25%-55% ratio of enrollment in developed countries.
"It should be said that childcare services are the 'shortcoming' of my country's people's livelihood security'. 'No one carries out a child' is also an important factor that affects the effectiveness of the implementation of the three-child policy." Yang Wenzhuang said bluntly.
Yang Zhen, member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and full-time vice chairman of the Central Committee of the China Democratic League, proposed that the supply of childcare services should be increased, the country's main responsibility in public childcare services should be clarified, and the kindergarten with conditions should be actively promoted to open nursing classes . will include childcare services for infants and young children aged 2-3 years into the universal preschool education system mainly based on public institutions.
"At the same time, it is recommended to encourage and support party and government institutions, state-owned enterprises and institutions and social forces, revitalize various idle resources, establish and open infant and childcare service institutions, and realize open sharing of resources nearby. Actively explore home-style childcare, use community families as a supplementary form of childcare services, and encourage neighbors to help childcare through care training, financial subsidies, selection and commendation, supervision services, etc.," said Yang Zhen.
Zhang Benbo, a researcher at the Institute of Social Development and Development Institute of Macroeconomic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, , found that while there is a huge gap in childcare services, it also faces the problem of difficulty in enrolling students. Unreasonable layout of childcare institutions and high prices are important reasons for mismatch in supply and demand.
A survey of Haidian District, Beijing by relevant institutions showed that 25% of for-profit institutions had monthly fees of more than 7,000 yuan, 50% were between 4,000 and 7,000 yuan, and only 25% were below 4,000 yuan, which brought huge economic pressure to many families. Despite this, many childcare institutions are still operating at a loss and feel that it is "not easy" to enter the childcare service.
"This is because many childcare institutions are in the initial stage, with weak risk resistance, high construction costs, operating costs, , and a long investment recovery cycle. In addition, the lack of financial and other support policies has led to difficulties in social forces for hiring," said Zhang Benbo.
In his opinion, childcare services belong to the category of public services and the government should assume basic responsibilities. "The government guarantees the bottom line, and the non-basic parts are shared by families and enterprises, and a cost sharing mechanism is established for the three parties."
National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference , He Dan, director of the China Population and Development Research Center , believes that childcare services must be universal or free to better promote the balance of female vocational education and improve fertility rates. "We must not follow the old path of marketization first, industrialization and then promote universal benefits. Time cannot be delayed. Like the construction of elderly care service system , bricks, bedside and heads should be supplemented together. Just like the three-year action plan for preschool education , the inclusive admission rate should be taken as the core indicator."
Zhang Benbo also believes that the government should improve the top-level design of the supply system, clarify the policy orientation of the development of childcare services, increase central budget investment, adopt operational subsidies, reward subsidies, and purchase services to reduce the operating costs of enterprises, and support institutions to provide universal services. explores the issuance of family childcare vouchers or direct childcare subsidies to reduce the family's care costs and increase the willingness of family consumption.
fertility support policy: It is necessary to "resonate" in all aspects
0 fertility support policies can be divided into three categories. In addition to supporting service policies represented by childcare services, they also include parental welfare (time support) and economic support policies. Since the reform and opening up of , my country's social welfare policies have not been designed with fertility support as the core. The cost of fertility is mainly undertaken by families. The newly-started fertility support policy system also has many shortcomings and weaknesses.
Take the parental welfare policy as an example: At present, my country's parental welfare policies for women's childbirth are mainly maternity leave, childbirth reward leave and breastfeeding leave. Even if relevant support policies have been issued, there are still problems of inadequate implementation.
Deputy Director of the Population, Resources and Environment Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Executive Vice President of the China Family Planning Association, and former Deputy Director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission Wang Pei'an During the investigation, it was found that the current provisions of " Population and Family Planning Law of the People's Republic of China " stipulated that the "Couples who have children in accordance with the law can receive rewards for extended maternity leave" stipulated in the implementation of the provisions of "home and couples who have children in accordance with the law can receive rewards for extended maternity leave" in the implementation, and the benefits of maternity allowance during the reward leave are also difficult to implement.
"It is recommended to make extended adjustments to the maternity leave deadline regulations to make the implementation of maternity leave more operational, and also enable all regions to enjoy the statutory maternity leave more consistently, helping to create a fertility-friendly society." said Wang Pei'an.
Yang Zhen proposed to encourage local governments to add reward maternity leave for having two or three children based on actual conditions, and increase the flexibility of maternity leave, allowing newborn mothers to take scattered leave depending on the situation. "At the same time, male paternity leave is unified and forced to be implemented at the national level, which can be used flexibly."
Liu Juan, deputy director of the Department of the Treatment and Security of the National Medical Insurance Administration, , put forward different opinions on extending maternity leave. She said that integrated research should be conducted on support policies. "If the maternity leave is simply extended, it may cause female employees to be discriminated against in their career development and affect their willingness to give birth."
Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Chen Xia believes that women suffer from different degrees of discrimination when they are employed is largely due to the lack of a reasonable cost-sharing mechanism for fertility. "The current situation is that the cost of increased maternity protection benefits (such as extending maternity leave, etc.) falls entirely on the employer, which of course can easily cause employment discrimination against women, especially young women."She believes that the government should take a multi-pronged approach in education, medical care, workplace friendship, maternity allowances, tax exemption, etc., and promote the rational distribution of fertility costs among families, employers, and governments by introducing a diverse form of cost sharing, and mobilize the whole society to jointly reduce fertility costs.
National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference member, Beijing Jintai Law The director of the firm Pijianlong said, "The failure to establish a complete public service guarantee system for population fertility is a very important reason for the high cost of fertility. It is recommended to establish a public legal service system for population and fertility in my country, strictly implement the laws and regulations such as the Labor Law , the Women's Rights Protection Law, and formulate and improve supporting measures to protect women's legitimate rights and interests, and protect women's employment and leave rights. "
economic support policy is also the focus of participants' attention.
Yang Zhen suggested that implement family tax reductions and exemptions, and include related expenditures such as infant care and young children under 3 years old in special additional deductions. improves maternity insurance system , expanding the coverage from employees who have established labor relations with employers to all medical insurance insured groups, and clarifying that the three basic benefits of prenatal examination, inpatient delivery and family planning surgery are included in medical insurance. Explore various forms of childcare allowance systems, family education subsidy policies, housing preferential policies, etc.
He Dan believes that consolidating and improving my country's maternity security system is a major and urgent research task. "I personally believe that my country's population conditions and national financial resources do not support the establishment of another set of family welfare policies, and local financial resources should be guided to give priority to improving the maternity insurance system. "
In this regard, Liu Juan said that maternity allowances currently account for 78% of maternity protection expenditure. In order to prevent the medical insurance fund from bringing great pressure on medical insurance fund and causing institutional risk transfer, the improvement of maternity insurance in the future will consider decoupling from the benefits conditions, that is, as long as you participate in insurance, you will enjoy maternity protection benefits. "We will make some settings on the inclusiveness of the policy. "
Wang Xinxiang, deputy director of the Social Security Department of the Ministry of Finance, , brings good news." According to the deployment of relevant central regulations, the special deduction plan for personal income tax has been 'on the road' and will be issued soon. We will also consider other birth support policies related to the Ministry of Finance and actively cooperate with the National Health Commission, Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Education and other departments to do relevant work. "
Accurate positioning: Don't flood the flood
He Dan talked about some of the problems she found during the investigation and her analysis of the precise policy.
" When some regions study the policy of childbirth support, the policy focuses on encouraging and supporting the birth of third children. Some people suggest that having a first child is a family’s urgent need and there is no need to support it. Limited policy resources should be focused on supporting , second child, and third child. This is very worth discussing. ”
In He Dan’s view, under the current economic and social development and policy conditions, has entered marriage and family and then given birth to children, which is no longer a necessity for young people, and the parenting experience of the first child directly affects the decisions of the second and third child births.
This has also been reflected in a series of data in recent years - over the past 10 years, my country’s first child birth level has shown a rapid decline, from around 0.9 in 2011 to 2020 0.63 in the year. In 2020, the proportion of married women born in the 1990s, that is, women aged 21-30 years old was 57.6%, a decrease of 12 percentage points compared with the 1980s. The proportion of ideal children born in the 1990s with 0 increased to 1.7%, significantly higher than the 0.3% of those born in the 1980s and 1970s.
"One childbirth is the basis for determining the long-term trend of the total fertility rate. Only by having one child can one have two or more children. Therefore, the birth support policy should downplay the concept of childbirth and focus on supporting young people with appropriate age marriage and childbirth. " He Dan said.
Director of the Population, Resources and Environment Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and Former Director of the Development Research Center of the State Council also said, "There are indeed such misunderstandings in the understanding of birth support policies in various places. We pay too much attention to two children and three children. The most prominent contradiction in is that there are few children in one child. We must recognize the situation and make correct policy guidance.”
Yang Wenzhuang also holds the same view. “ universal two-child policy Why will there be a small peak in fertility after ? Because they are all born in the 1970s who are fighting for their lives. After the full three-child policy, our target group is the '90s and '00s'. Their current status is that they have no feelings about the three-child policy. Both children are not included in the scope of consideration, let alone three children. Therefore, must not use the fertility situation after the universal two-child policy to analyze and predict the future fertility situation, and must implement precise policies. ”
In addition to the appropriate marriage and childbirth groups, He Dan also emphasized the middle-income group, believing that they are the group with the lowest conversion rate of fertility intention, the group with the greatest fertility potential, and the target group that should be paid attention to by the fertility support policies.
data shows that in 2019, the number of ideal children and planned children of women of childbearing age in my country was 1.92 and 1.73 respectively, which is far higher than the actual fertility level in recent years, indicating that due to external constraints, individual fertility intention has not been fully realized. The higher the education level, the more serious the deviation between the number of children in the average number of children in the current population and their willingness. The unrealized childbirth intention of people with college degree or above is 0.26, and the less than primary school education is 0.07, and the former is nearly three times higher than the latter. Similarly, the average ideal number of children and childbirth intention of women in non-agricultural household registration, non-agricultural employment, urban areas, and eastern regions are all lower. "This part of the middle-income people faces greater parenting anxiety, and it is urgent to implement targeted measures to help key groups improve the realization of childbirth intention. " He Dan said. Foreign experience shows that the indiscriminate distribution of childcare benefits or subsidies will only increase the birth of low-income groups, affecting the birth time arrangement of a small number of fertility groups, and has a limited impact on improving women's lifelong fertility level. Therefore, participants all believed that precise policies and avoid flooding are the top priority to boost fertility levels.
Improve fertility willingness: more critical than liberalizing the birth policy
At the meeting, Du Gang, deputy director of the Unemployment Insurance Department of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, raised a question: Why did some people have to be expelled from public office and have a high fine in the past even if they were dismissed from public office and had high fines? Now the policies of universal two-child and universal three-child are here, but no more encouragement is encouraged?
"This involves a question of fertility willingness. When the childbirth policy is strong, the effect of the childbirth policy can be immediate. Once the willingness to give birth weakens, the effect of the fertility policy will also decrease. This is also the fundamental reason why the expected significant increase in fertility rate has not occurred after the previous two-child policy has been fully liberalized. In this sense, improves fertility intentions more than liberalizing fertility policies. " He Dan said.
In Li Wei's view, in the past, in the agricultural society, everyone generally had the idea of "there are many people who can do things". Having children can help with farm work and prevent old age. It has a clan and filial piety and filial piety. A family-wide family is a "winner in life". Nowadays, the cost and resources of raising children are no longer the same. Many young people believe that the family happiness that can be enjoyed by raising one or two children cannot offset the price to pay, and the motivation for having children has also changed.
Now the decline in fertility rate has become a world-class phenomenon. From the actual situation, as the childbearing age continues to be delayed, the phenomenon of late childbearing is more common, especially the age of childbearing may continue to increase in the future. Whether from a medical perspective or from a home, the phenomenon of late childbearing is more common. From a family perspective, the pressure of having more children at the age of elderly people is obvious, which poses new challenges to promoting eugenics, family care, etc.
In this regard, participants said that if regards the supporting policies for childbirth as a "reservoir", the willingness to childbirth is the "water in the pool". It is not enough to rely solely on policy relaxation to increase the capacity of the reservoir, and it is also necessary to cultivate the water of "recruitment". The improvement of childbirth desire requires a systematic and overall system design, and requires the participation of the whole society. Through the construction and implementation of a series of coordinated policy mechanisms such as childbirth, education, housing, pension, and employment, a soft environment will eventually be formed, and a more wider coverage and more friendly to the family, thereby promoting the better implementation of the "three-child policy".
Chen Xia mentioned the issue of the social value of childbirth. "I think we need to cultivate a new concept of fertility, that is, fertility is not only a matter of individuals or families, but also social. We must recognize the importance of marriage and childbirth at the right age to social development."
"Although not many people think that giving birth to children is to contribute to the reproduction of the nation and the development of society, it actually plays this role. Therefore, the government must assume the corresponding responsibility of supporting fertility and reduce the cost of fertility and raising to the greatest extent." Du Gang said.
In Yang Wenzhuang's view, improving population structure is a long-term issue and requires long-term efforts. He particularly hopes that the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference can further strengthen its appeal and create a social friendly atmosphere in the whole society where marriage and childbirth of appropriate age, marriage, family, mothers, children are preferred, and husbands actively participate in parenting. "We will work with relevant departments to actively implement relevant policies, strive to improve the level of eugenics and excellent parenting services, reduce the cost of fertility and raising education, effectively reduce the burden on the masses, continuously boost the level of fertility, and promote long-term balanced population development." Yang Wenzhuang said.
Members made suggestions
Member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former deputy director of the National Bureau of Statistics:
The key to solving the low fertility rate is to solve the "educational anxiety"
Promote the implementation of the three-child policy. It is not only to focus on "one elderly and one young" and establish and improve a population service system covering the entire life cycle, but also to effectively promote the reform of the education system, so as to better solve the problem of "not wanting to have, not being able to have, and not daring to have children" for couples of childbearing age.
From a medical perspective, the best age for women to have children is generally 25-30 years old, but at present, "late marriage and late childbirth" has become a common social problem. my country's education system is relatively long, and the average education period for residents is gradually increasing, which is an important reason for the significant delay in the age of marriage and childbirth.
suggests shortening the school system, changes the six-year system in primary schools to five-year system, and the three-year system in junior high schools to two-year system, and popularizes high school education. implements a "ten-year compulsory education system" covering primary schools, junior high schools and high schools. At the same time, college students will be included in the maternity insurance coverage, provide basic medical insurance and appropriate living allowances for college students who have children during school, and set up institutional conveniences for college students such as taking a break and resumption of school, so as to reduce the proportion of induced abortions for college students.
Regarding the "educational anxiety" spreading throughout the society, on the one hand, the time and money investment for children's education has put a heavy burden on parents, and has become one of the important reasons why young people dare not have children. On the other hand, long-term and high-intensity learning competition from primary school to middle school will also lead to a decline in physical fitness of adolescent students, an increase in the proportion of depression and , and even bring about the social risk of high suicide rates for young people.
Continuing the "ten-year compulsory education system" mentioned above, Can we exempt the entrance examinations from primary and middle schools and implement the consistent basic compulsory education from primary to high school? Can implement the regular teacher mobility system, cancel key schools in primary schools, junior and high schools, and achieve balanced development of compulsory education in ? Can we promote the supporting reforms of vocational education and higher education, reform the college entrance examination system, and "lean entry and strict exit" for ordinary colleges and universities, retain the final elimination rate and transfer rate, so that universities and students can choose more suitable students and majors? I think these can be considered.
suggests that the basic and introductory nature of education should be highlighted in the basic education stage, while paying attention to "morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics and labor", and move professional education and vocational education to primary and secondary school stages, and early discovery of students with biased subjects and talents for training, encourage diversified development of education in junior and senior high school stages, and allow students to select and diversify higher education and vocational education in advance according to their own situation. On this basis, effectively promotes the construction of a high-quality education system, enables education to return to its essence, promotes supporting reforms of vocational education and higher education, and forms a multi-level education system that is conducive to the healthy growth and development of young people.
Member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Vice Chairman of the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Jiusan Society and Deputy Director of the Xi'an College of Arts and Sciences:
Childcare service talent training should be integrated
By the end of 2020, the total number of infants and young children under the age of 3 in my country will be 39.915 million. According to the ratio requirements for infants and young children to childcare personnel, calculated at a minimum enrollment rate of 5%, the scale of required childcare personnel is close to 2 million. However, my country currently has more than 270 colleges and universities for early education, early childhood development and health management of higher vocational majors related to infant care, with an annual training scale of about 20,000.
The huge talent gap not only restricts the scale and professional development of childcare services, but also seriously affects the people's trust and satisfaction in the childcare service industry.
At the Fourth Session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, I submitted the "Proposal on the Training of "Higher Vocational and Undergraduate Integration" for Childcare Service Talents", proposing to promote the construction of an integrated training system for childcare service professionals from the aspects of policy formulation and mechanism establishment.
The core abilities of childcare practitioners mainly cover medical nursing, life care, child behavior observation, early education guidance and game activity guidance, etc. Undergraduate colleges have the advantages of cross-disciplinary cross-disciplinary advantages such as medicine, nutrition, , education, psychology, art, etc., and have a research platform for medical nursing and child development. Building an integrated training system for childcare service professional talents vocational colleges and undergraduate colleges is of great significance to improving academic qualifications in the childcare industry, cultivating high-level talents, and improving overall service quality.
recommends the implementation of the "Action Plan for High-level Child Care Talent Training". In addition to opening childcare majors in each province according to the regulations of the Ministry of Education, advocates that undergraduate colleges with conditions have the opportunity to offer junior college to undergraduate childcare majors, with no less than one school in each province, and receive some outstanding vocational graduates through the "application-approval" method. The government provides special funds and enter undergraduate colleges and universities for free training for two years.
At the same time, a new talent training model that integrates higher vocational colleges and undergraduate colleges should be built. Both parties have built an integrated curriculum system of "higher vocational courses + interface courses + undergraduate courses", and established an integrated communication platform for "undergraduate college teachers + higher vocational college teachers + childcare practitioners", and created a team of teachers with both academic and "dual teacher type". In addition, integrated construction improves the conditions for on-campus medical care, parenting and education training and off-campus practice bases.
Exploring integrated training models for childcare practitioners has also been highlighted in the proposal. We can rely on the "undergraduate college teachers + higher vocational college teachers + childcare industry experts" platform to give full play to the research, consultation, guidance and service role of the expert team, develop training course plans, and carry out special research to provide theoretical support and intellectual support for talent training in childcare service industry. At the same time, make full use of practical teaching resources of undergraduate colleges and universities, carry out targeted practical skills training, open up career development channels for childcare practitioners, and comprehensively improve the quality of childcare services.
The original text was published on December 31, 2021 " People's Political Consultative Conference Daily " 8th edition
Reporter: Lü Wei
