The "2023 China People's Livelihood Development Report" will be released soon, which is the 13th report released by the China People's Livelihood Development Report Research Group of Beijing Normal University.
The 2023 China People's Livelihood Development Report focuses on the theme of "'Dual Carbon' Strategy and People's Livelihood Development", responding to the impact of green development and the "dual carbon" strategy on people's livelihood development. The "dual carbon" strategy not only demonstrates China's mission and responsibility as a responsible major country, but also promotes the high-quality development of people's livelihood, strengthens the bottom line of people's livelihood, makes up for the shortcomings of people's livelihood, and plays an important role in stabilizing employment, ensuring growth, increasing income, promoting the sinking of medical and educational resources, and implementing the "one old and one young" living guarantee, which greatly enhances people's livelihood's sense of gain, happiness and security, and lays a solid foundation and stimulates momentum for people's livelihood development to a new level.
The "dual carbon" strategy has become an endogenous driving force to promote the high-quality development of people's livelihood
There is no substitute for the ecological environment, and it is difficult to survive without realizing it, and it is the most beneficial public service and the most inclusive people's livelihood. With the economic and social development and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the status of the ecological environment in the people's life happiness index has been continuously highlighted, and environmental problems have increasingly become an important livelihood issue, and the broad masses of the people are eagerly looking forward to accelerating the improvement of the quality of the ecological environment.
**The general secretary repeatedly pointed out: "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets." "Lucid waters and lush mountains are an important part of people's happy life. "A good ecological environment is the fairest public good and the most inclusive people's livelihood and well-being. "Economic development is for the people's livelihood, and protecting the ecological environment is also for the people's livelihood. "The environment is the people's livelihood, the green mountains are beautiful, and the blue sky is also happiness." "In order to deeply respond to the people's most direct and urgent need for a beautiful ecological environment, China solemnly promises to the world to strive to achieve carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.
The "dual carbon" strategy has become an endogenous driving force to promote the high-quality development of people's livelihood, which is related to people's livelihood and well-being, and responds to the people's thoughts, hopes and anxieties with practical measures, and implements ecological benefits for the people, ecology for the people, and ecology for the people. According to last year's survey by the National Bureau of Statistics, more than 90 percent of the people were satisfied with the ecological environment.
New characteristics of the development of people's livelihood at the prefecture level
In 2023, China's prefecture-level people's livelihood development will show new characteristics. First, the development of people's livelihood at the prefecture-level level in the western region has risen strongly. Although in terms of quantity, the overall trend of the top 100 prefecture-level cities in terms of livelihood development still shows a cascade gap between east, middle and west, with 44 prefecture-level cities in the middle and east, 32 prefecture-level cities in the central part and 24 prefecture-level cities in the west in the top 100. However, looking at the level of people's livelihood development in the six years from 2018 to 2023, there are 24 prefecture-level cities in the central and western regions of the top 100 people's livelihood development in 2023, second only to 27 in 2019, accounting for 24%;The top 100 prefecture-level citizens in the eastern region will drop from 53% in 2018 to 44% in 2023. This shows that the implementation effect of the poverty alleviation strategy is obvious, after the poverty alleviation in the western region, the development of people's livelihood has risen strongly, the gap between the development of people's livelihood in the eastern, central and western regions has narrowed, the economic strength of the western region has increased, and the investment in people's livelihood has increased.
Second, there is an obvious imbalance in the development of people's livelihood at the prefecture level in the western region. Among the 12 provinces and cities in the western region, the outstanding performance is the prefecture-level city of Inner Mongolia, which occupies 2 seats in the top 10, and Gansu also performs well, indicating that these regions have achieved results in the process of economic development transformation and the transformation of resource-based cities. Sichuan and Guizhou provinces are major ecological and environmental provinces, and green development has achieved remarkable results, but there is still a need to improve people's livelihood development. In particular, Sichuan, as a province with a large economy and a large population, is very incommensurate with its status as one of the top 100 prefecture-level people's livelihood development, indicating that Sichuan's people's livelihood resources are relatively concentrated, the prefecture-level people's livelihood development investment is insufficient, and the contradiction of unbalanced and insufficient development is still very prominent. Ningxia, Qinghai and ** did not have any prefecture-level cities in the top 100.
Third, the head of the top 100 prefecture-level citizen development is stable, and the tail is undulating significantly. Among the top 100 prefecture-level citizen development in 2023, the top 10 are all concentrated in the east, especially in Jiangsu and Guangdong, Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, Dongguan, Foshan, and Zhuhai, and the top 6 are all occupied by Jiangsu and Guangdong, which shows that the eastern provinces have a strong development momentum. The two prefecture-level cities in Inner Mongolia have jumped into the top ten, which shows that the development and transformation of resource-based cities in western China has been successful, and the latecomer advantage is obvious, and there is a great tendency for the latter to catch up. On the contrary, the livelihood development of the central provinces did not enter the top 10 prefecture-level cities, indicating that the prefecture-level livelihood development in the central region still needs to catch up.
In 2023, the top 10 prefecture-level cities in terms of people's livelihood development show that they have not achieved significant results in people's livelihood infrastructure construction, economic development, housing and travel, culture and education, safety and health, and other livelihood protection and improvement, and it is still necessary to further enhance the vitality of people's livelihood development.
In 2023, the distribution of China's top 100 prefecture-level citizens in terms of livelihood development is relatively concentrated, of which Shandong accounts for 13 seats, making it the province with the most prefecture-level cities among the top 100;Inner Mongolia occupies 11 seats, with Alxa League at No. 7 and Ordos at No. 10 in the top 10Jiangsu accounts for 9 seats, and the first place is from Jiangsu, which shows the strong development of Jiangsu's prefecture-level cities;Zhejiang occupies 9 seats, and Shaoxing, which ranks 8th in the top 10.
Heilongjiang is a major agricultural province in Northeast China among the top 100, accounting for 6 seatsGuangdong occupies 5 seats, respectively ranked and first;Hunan has 5 seats, Anhui has 5 seats, Gansu has 5 seats, Fujian has 4 seats, Liaoning has 4 seats, Hubei has 3 seats, Hebei has 3 seats, Jiangxi has 3 seats, and Guangxi has 3 seats. Henan, the largest province in central China in terms of population and economy, only occupies two seats in the top 100, indicating that Henan's regional economic development needs to be strengthened. Qinghai, Ningxia and ** 3 provinces did not have prefecture-level cities on the list in the top 100.
Countermeasures to narrow the gap between people's livelihood and development
Relying on the strong advantages of economic development and industrial agglomeration, the prefecture-level cities in the eastern region can provide a higher level of infrastructure for people's livelihood and better meet the needs of the people's lives in education, medical care and public cultural services. Therefore, the key to improving people's livelihood is to vigorously develop the economy and enhance its economic strength. Only when the economy develops and the people's income level increases, can we ensure employment, attract the return of the population and the gathering of high-quality talents, promote industrial development and scientific and technological innovation, and have the financial resources to develop education and medical care, and improve public service infrastructure.
Some prefecture-level cities in the central and western regions that are temporarily lagging behind in the development of people's livelihood should rely on their own resource endowments and geographical advantages to undertake different functional positioning and develop industries in which they have advantages. For example, the main grain-producing areas have vigorously developed grain production, extended the industrial chain and value chain of grain processing, and created higher added valueEnergy-rich areas should adhere to the concept of green development, while improving and strengthening the traditional energy industry, realize the transformation of the energy industry, develop clean and new wind, solar and electric energy, achieve low-carbon or even zero emissions, and realize energy to strengthen people's livelihood and enrich people's livelihood.
Ecological restoration and tourism areas should transform ecological and environmental resources into resources and assets, develop tourism, homestay and other industries through afforestation and ecological restoration, and use carbon market transactions to transform the unique resources of mountains, rivers, lakes, grass and sand into residents' income.
Give full play to the radiation and driving effect of advanced prefecture-level cities in people's livelihood, and drive prefecture-level cities with lagging development in people's livelihood through demonstration, assistance, support, etc., so as to form the effect of advanced helping backward and bringing backward forward, and move towards common prosperity. Of course, help and drive are only exogenous forces, and the most important thing is to stimulate the endogenous power of prefecture-level cities to protect and improve people's livelihood. Prefecture-level cities that are temporarily lagging behind in the development of people's livelihood should change their concepts, invest more resources in improving people's livelihood while developing their economy with high-quality development, transform late-mover advantages into people's livelihood advantages, share the fruits of economic development with the people, improve people's livelihood and well-being, continuously improve the quality of people's life, and narrow the gap between people's livelihood development in the eastern, central and western regions.
School of Management, Beijing Normal University, Tang Renwu, Shi Xiaowen, Ma Yanqing).