"Wife shortage" is not a new term, this phenomenon is especially prominent in rural areas today, many men of appropriate age for various reasons have difficulty finding a suitable marriage partner, and in the end can only delay it again and again.
To be honest, we all know what the causes of the "wife shortage" are, but it is also clear that in the current social context, these social problems are actually difficult to solve.
However, in addition to this thorny problem, there are also "three strange things" in the countryside, which are no less difficult than the "wife shortage".
Rural revitalization is a national policy, and many rural areas have been renovated under the promotion of policies, such as the renewal and maintenance of public facilities in the villages, such as industrial parks around the countryside, and good jobs can be found at the doorstep.
According to normal logic, since the hometown has good development prospects, it is natural to return to the hometown for development, after all, no one wants to leave the hometown, but the real situation is a little different from what everyone thinks, let's take a look at the data.
On August 18 last year, the Rural Education Development Forum was held in Beijing, at which the "2023 Rural Education Development Report" was released, which showed that the number of left-behind children in China has dropped to 9.02 million in 2022, more than half compared with 22 million in 2012.
Although the number has dropped, let's not forget that the number of newborns has also dropped dramatically in recent years, from 2016 to the present, the number of newborns has decreased by more than 50%, so the actual situation of left-behind children is not as optimistic as everyone imagined.
There are three main reasons for the above situation: first, they do not return to the rural areas for development, because the wage level in the rural areas is not as good as that in the cities, and there are still many rural areas that have not been "developed"; Second, parents may not be able to work easily in the city and may still live in dormitories, in which case bringing their children over means increasing the cost of living, and they cannot even guarantee their basic livelihood and take care of them.
The above are the difficulties of parents, but in the same way, left-behind children also have to face some problems, one is education, which not only refers to learning, but also includes moral concepts, etc., and the other is the lack of fatherly love for parents, and the child's personality may become withdrawn and introverted.
Therefore, the problem of left-behind children cannot be ignored, but it is meaningless to just shout slogans to encourage farmers to take their children out or stay in the countryside, and the best solution is to reduce the burden of farmers and increase their income through welfare policies and rural revitalization.
Many farmers in China have begun to use agricultural machinery for planting, but to use agricultural machinery, one of the most basic prerequisites is that the planting area is large enough, otherwise it will be a loss.
However, in the countryside, there are actually a large number of small areas of farmland, and the older generation will never let them go, and will always do their best to grow good crops, and the worst of all, also grow vegetables.
But nowadays, young people either work outside the home, or find a local class, or do their own small business, as for farming, it has long been "forgotten" by them, resulting in this part of the land completely idle and overgrown with weeds.
And this phenomenon is more obvious in some rural areas where rural revitalization has achieved better results, why do you say so?
Take my family as an example, the tourism industry is developing very well, there are a lot of larger hotels, and there are several industrial parks, which provide a large number of jobs, everyone works from 9 to 5, the salary is stable, and the five insurances and one housing fund are paid.
One might wonder why not rent out or expropriate if it's idle? This is because these farmlands are small in size, one in the east and one in the west, and they are close to the village, and their use is severely restricted, and they cannot be rented out at all, let alone expropriated.
We are a big food producer, but we are also a big food consumer, and we can't ignore the fact that these lands are small enough to add up.
The problem of the left-behind elderly is the same as that of left-behind children, whose children go out to work and the elderly who are left alone in the village, not only lack the necessary care, but may also have to take extra care of their grandchildren, so that supporting the elderly has become a big problem.
In addition, it is worth paying attention to the fact that when the post-60s and post-70s generations reach the age of support, their lives may be more miserable.
First of all, the issue of pensions, which has always been a major "sore spot" for farmers, needless to say; The second is the only child, the post-60s and post-70s respond to the national policy, most of them have only one child, and they are just in time for the era of skyrocketing housing prices, in order to get their children married, they need to contribute money and efforts, so that there is not much savings left, and they need to rely on their children in the future. Therefore, the pressure is quite high for themselves and their children.
In view of this problem, during the two sessions, the NPC deputies also put forward corresponding proposals, including the following:
1. Chen Baochao, a representative of the National People's Congress, suggested that the rural pension carriers should be enriched and the coverage rate of restaurants for the elderly should be improved: increase financial support for farmers' pension facilities, and advocate that all localities adopt various forms to build collective apartments for the elderly; Make use of idle state-owned building assets, encourage social capital investment, cooperate with catering brands, and increase the main body of meal supply through multiple channels.2. Wen Shanlian, a deputy to the National People's Congress, suggested that the rural pension standard should be raised.
3. Xi Wangmu, the representative of the National People's Congress, suggested that the wages and benefits of rural elderly care workers should be improved, the social attention of elderly care workers should be strengthened, and social forces such as social organizations and housekeeping should be introduced to improve the pension service system.
Whether these suggestions can be passed by us is still unknown, but most people hope that these measures can be realized, because they do solve the problem of "rural elderly pension difficulties" to a certain extent.