"One stone stirs up a thousand waves", this sentence is used to describe the current population situation in China can be described as just right. The birth population data for 2023 has finally been revealed, 9.02 million, which is a report card handed over by a country with a population of 1.4 billion. Although this figure is slightly higher than the previous network**, it is still down 5 percentage points from the previous year, to only about 48% of the population born in 2016, a drop of more than half.
Behind this icy set of figures, there is an even more grim reality: the total fertility rate is only 10, which is much lower than the 1 in advanced economies5, even lower than Japan, which has a serious aging population, ranks second to last in the world. And 6The 39 percent fertility rate is also a new low since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
At present, the downward trend in fertility has not been reversed. Judging from the comments on the Internet, people generally have the sentiment of "not daring to give birth, not wanting to give birth". If this trend continues, the number of births is likely to continue to decline in the future. Even the relatively optimistic National Research Center released a population development report on January 16, saying that the number of births will decline by 1 million every 10 years in the future, maintaining a long-term downward trend.
Faced with this situation, many people feel anxious. As can be seen from the online comments, there are four main reasons why people are reluctant to have children:
First of all, house prices are skyrocketing. Although housing prices have been adjusted in the past two years, statistics show that the average price of newly built commercial housing in China is still 1050,000 square meters. It costs more than 1 million yuan to buy an ordinary three-bedroom house of 100 square meters, which is a big burden for many families. Although some people believe that China's current homeownership rate has reached 96%, there are still 200 million families who need to bear the pressure of up to 38 trillion mortgages. According to the traditional belief, "a house is a home", so preparing a house for your children will undoubtedly bring great pressure to the rest of your life.
Second, education is involuted. Although public schools in the compulsory education stage charge less fees, in order to provide their children with better educational opportunities, parents have to choose to enroll in various cram schools. Although the state has rectified off-campus training, private training is still prohibited. Due to the higher risks, the cost of training is higher than before. Parents have to participate in the ranks of "rolls" in this environment, which not only increases the financial burden, but also may have a negative impact on the physical and mental health of their children.
Third, medical care is expensive. Medical issues are deeply felt by everyone. Even for a common cold, the cost can reach thousands of dollars. For raising children, there may be more than one cold per year, and these are hard expenses that must be borne by them. In addition, if parents are sick, they often do not dare to seek medical attention easily because they need to take care of their children and family. This mentality of "nothing is sick, nothing is nothing, no money" reflects the helplessness and anxiety of many parents.
Finally, the old-age security is insufficient. While our economy has made remarkable achievements and our standard of living has improved dramatically, the reality is that many people are not rich enough to survive the rest of their lives on a meager pension. Therefore, the state has been promoting the policy of delaying retirement. According to the trend of substitution of pension levels, retirement may even need to be delayed until the age of 70 in the future. This phenomenon of "growing old before getting rich" has raised concerns that a meager pension will not be able to maintain the previous standard of living after retirement, and that they may need to continue working. Therefore, in the face of fertility pressure, many families are afraid to have more children because they are worried about the problem of providing for the elderly.
In view of these problems, the state also sees it in its eyes and is anxious in its heart. Following the liberalization of two-child births in 2016 and three-child births in 2021, the state has successively introduced two major policy adjustments in a short period of time, showing concerns about the decline in fertility rates. The aim of these policies is to improve the demographic structure, mitigate the declining fertility rate, and promote sustainable economic and social development. In August 2023, the National Standing Committee adopted guidance on planning affordable housing, focusing on supporting working families with housing difficulties and low incomes, and gradually expanding coverage. This initiative is regarded as one of the important measures of the state to support childbirth.
At present, the birth policy has become very relaxed, and various localities have also introduced a series of policies and measures to encourage childbirth under the guidance of the state. For example, Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province provides subsidies to families with one, two and three children, and the maximum annual subsidy for two children is 120,000, with a maximum annual subsidy of 2 for three children40 thousand. In addition, after-school care services, subsidies for the purchase of houses, and other benefits are also available. However, despite the continuous introduction of these policies, the trend of declining fertility has not been effectively curbed. This is mainly because the "four mountains" that weigh on families of childbearing age have not been fundamentally addressed or have not been solved enough.
To this end, population expert Liang Jianzhang put forward a new proposal, which has been widely supported by netizens. After the statistics department released the latest birth data, he wrote "Is the Serious Declining Birthrate a Family or a State Affair?" (I have also written several reports before, and some of the recommendations have in fact been adopted by policymakers). Liang Jianzhang believes that the ultra-low fertility rate will not only affect family happiness and the country's future competitiveness, but also have a negative impact on the country's fiscal and economic vitality. Therefore, he suggested that more comprehensive fertility policy and welfare measures should be introduced at the first level, including 10 contents such as increasing maternity allowances, expanding public childcare services, and optimizing the allocation of educational resources, so as to reduce the pressure on family fertility and promote the long-term balanced development of the population.