Allow universal two children: what policy adjustments will be made after the two children are released?

Promote balanced population development, adhere to the basic national policy of family planning, improve the population development strategy, fully implement the policy that one couple can have two children, and actively carry out actions to deal with the aging population.

The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee decided to fully implement the policy that a couple can have two children.

In 1970s, in order to control the excessive population growth and ease the tension between population and economy, society, resources and environment, China began to implement family planning in an all-round way. 1September 1982, family planning was defined as the basic national policy by the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and was written into the newly revised Constitution in the same year1October 165438.

After more than 30 years, China's population development has seen a major turning point. The growth momentum of the total population is obviously weakened, and the degree of aging is deepening.

20 13, 1 1 The Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee deliberated and adopted the "Decision of the Central Committee on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform", proposing to adhere to the basic national policy of family planning and initiate the implementation of the policy that couples with one only child can have two children.

In an interview with the Beijing News reporter, many experts believe that the full liberalization of the two children will not bring about a sharp rise in the birth rate and a sharp rebound in the population. At the same time, the policy can only alleviate problems such as social aging, and it is expected that it will not appear until 2026 at the earliest.

Focus 1

Will the birth rate increase greatly?

Will not lead to a soaring birth rate; The baby boom may occur in 20 17 years.

Liang Jianzhang, the founder of Ctrip.com and a population expert, told The Beijing News that due to the cumulative effect, the number of births will rebound in the first few years after the full liberalization of childbearing, but the extent is limited.

He believes that according to the loosest estimate, the number of births with the highest rebound is much lower than that in the early 1990s.

In China, the implementation of the "two children alone" policy, the government had predicted that due to this policy, the population of China will increase by about 2 million every year. However, Liang Jianzhang once estimated that when the national policy was introduced for an average of one year, the number of applicants nationwide was only 6.5438+0.54 million, and the number of new births would be much lower than 6.5438+0.54 million. This is far below official expectations.

For example, Henan, a populous province in China, officially implemented the "two children alone" policy in early June last year. As of May 3rd this year, Henan Province * * * accepted 47,000 applications for the birth of two children alone, with a birth population of 1.3 million. In Zhejiang, the actual birth population in 20 14 exceeded160,000, far below the expected 80,000.

Chen Youhua, a sociology professor at Nanjing University, believes that "it is a good experiment to have two children alone, which proves that people's fertility enthusiasm is not high. Therefore, even after the implementation of the comprehensive two-child, population growth will never get out of control. "

Yao, a population expert and deputy director of the Population Census Center of Fujian Provincial Bureau of Statistics, also believes that letting go of the "two children" will not lead to a sharp rise in the birth rate and a sharp rebound in the population, because social transformation has a greater impact on fertility restrictions. From agricultural society to industrial society, the decline of fertility rate is an inevitable trend.

Liang Jianzhang said that from the actual effect of the implementation of the "two children alone" policy for more than a year, hundreds of thousands of newborns are added every year. It is estimated that there may be 50 million to 60 million women of childbearing age aged 20 to 40 in China who meet the policy. Affected by the comprehensive two-child policy, it is estimated that the average number of new children will be around 2.5 million in the future.

Huang, an American demographer and Ph.D. in biostatistics at Hopkins University, said in an interview with the media that the population increase brought by "comprehensive two children" is 3-8 million people per year, with an estimated median of 5 million people, and the birth peak may appear in 20 17 years.

Chen Youhua, a professor of sociology at Nanjing University, believes that the implementation of this policy will not bring more than 6 million new people each year, while the total number of births in China will not exceed 24 million.

Some experts also put forward different data on the number of people affected after the release of the "comprehensive two-child". Earlier, Yuan Xin, a professor at the Institute of Population and Development of Nankai University, said in an interview with the media that there are nearly 1 100 million couples in China who meet the conditions for reproduction.

On the other hand, Liang Jianzhang thinks that there may be 50 million to 60 million women of childbearing age aged 20 to 40 in China who meet the policy. Previously, about 6.5438+million women of childbearing age in China benefited from the "two children alone" policy.

Liang Jianzhang said that the fertility rate in China has been the lowest in the world for a long time. According to China's sex ratio and female survival rate, each couple needs to have at least 2.2 children to maintain the sustainable reproduction of the population. Meanwhile, from 20 14 to 2024, the number of women of childbearing age aged 23-28 in China will decrease from 73.87 million to 4 1 1600.

Focus 2

Can we slow down the trend of aging?

It can alleviate population aging and improve labor supply, but it will not change the trend.

Previously, many scholars suggested that the biggest challenge of population change in China is rapid aging. At the same time, the characteristics of "getting old before getting rich" are obvious. This will seriously affect the future economic development and social innovation ability.

Recently, Zhang Chewei, director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics of China Academy of Social Sciences, listed a set of data in his column: in 20 15, the population aged 60 and over in China was 222 million, accounting for16.16% of the total population; 256 million in 2020, accounting for18.28%; 372 million in 2030, accounting for 26.39%; In 2040, it was 44 1 billion, accounting for 3211%; In 2050, it was 492 million, accounting for 37.88%.

Zhang Chewei believes that liberalizing the birth of two children will not change the basic situation of the population, but it will help alleviate the aging of the population and improve the future labor supply. Even if the second child policy is fully liberalized immediately, the situation of aging population and declining working-age population in China will not fundamentally change. However, if the adjustment policy can bring about a certain increase in the fertility level and the increase in the number of births, it will be conducive to improving the population structure and promoting the long-term balanced development of the population.

Jiang Weiping told the Beijing News reporter that the comprehensive two-child policy will not bring obvious changes to the population situation in the near future. In the next 10 to 15 years, the impact of this policy will gradually become clear.

Chen Youhua believes that policy adjustment will enable more families to have two children, and the number of births will increase. But it can only slow down the aging process and will not change this trend.

Focus 3

How long will it take for the policy to land?

It should refer to the implementation process of the "two children alone" policy, first of all, we must amend the law.

Jiang Weiping, director of the China Population and Development Research Center of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, told the Beijing News that the full implementation of this policy will not be finalized until local people's congresses revise local laws.

Jiang Weiping told reporters that the implementation of the comprehensive liberalization of the two-child policy should refer to the implementation process of the "two children alone" policy. He stressed that there must be a process of amending the law first.

2013165438+10, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee decided to start the implementation of the "two children alone" policy. In February 65438, the State Council submitted the Suggestions on Adjusting and Perfecting the Birth Policy to the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC). At the end of February, the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) adopted the Opinions on Adjusting and Perfecting the Birth Policy issued by the Central Committee and the State Council.

The "Opinions" clarified the implementation plan of "two children alone" in various places. First, the provincial government makes an implementation plan, and then reports it to the competent department of the State Council for the record. After that, the provincial people's congress or its standing Committee revised the local regulations.

Jiang Weiping introduced that after China officially launched the "two children alone" policy, many places revised the family planning regulations accordingly. This leads to the delay in the implementation of local policies. For example, on 20 14 and 1, Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi took the lead in launching the "two children alone" policy, which was implemented in most provinces from March to June and was fully implemented in September.

Before the implementation of the policy, the treatment of "robbing people" was different in different places.

According to media statistics, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Tianjin, Beijing and other 17 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions clearly stipulate that it is illegal to "rob" two children alone before the implementation of the policy, and they still need to be fined according to regulations. However, Anhui's policy is relatively flexible. If two children are born during the policy transition period, that is,1October 201312 to1October 20 14 65438+23, when Anhui revises the family planning regulations, single families only need to submit birth certificates as required.

In this regard, the National Health and Family Planning Commission once said in its reply that after the announcement of the decision of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, before the decision of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Congress to implement the separate two-child policy or the revision of local laws and regulations was promulgated, if a single couple gave birth to a second child illegally, criticism and education should be given priority to, and no substantive treatment should be given in principle.

Focus 4

Can social resources cope?

Public services such as maternal and child health care and kindergartens will be strengthened.

After the implementation of the comprehensive two-child policy, can the existing hospital beds and kindergartens in China cope?

A number of experts said in an interview with the Beijing News reporter that at present, China's social resources are sufficient to cope with the fertility situation after policy adjustment, so there is no need to worry about this issue.

Chen Youhua, a sociology professor at Nanjing University, said that China had a history of population growth of more than 29 million per year. After the full liberalization of the two children, millions more newborns will be born every year, which will not lead to hospital tension and school tension. At present, the phenomenon of insufficient kindergartens and delivery rooms is unreasonable resource allocation. For example, everyone is crowded into first-tier cities.

However, Lu Jiehua, a population expert and professor of sociology in Peking University, said that big cities such as Beishangguang have corresponding population control targets at present, and the number of delivery rooms and beds is not a big problem. But the high-quality medical resources in megacities will become very scarce.

Yesterday, Li Bin, director of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said that the next step is to revise and improve relevant laws and regulations and do a good job in policy convergence. It is necessary to strengthen the supply of public services such as reproductive health, maternal and child health and child care.

Mary, a population expert and counselor of the State Council, also said that hospitals in all provinces are actively taking measures to undertake the coming baby boom, and many places are actively preparing beds and various resources.

At the same time, due to the rising cost of raising children and the change of fertility concept, the general fertility will decline. In this regard, many experts called on the government to take various measures to encourage the birth of a second child.

Mary believes that the government should formulate encouraging policies, for example, the original nine-year compulsory education can be adjusted to 12 years, because there is not a strong desire to have children in society at present. The decline of education cost greatly reduces the cost of raising children, and the compulsory education of 12 further improves the quality of children, which also determines the labor productivity and the economic and social development of the country.