On January 17, the National Bureau of Statistics released that in 2021, the annual number of births was 10.62 million, with a birth rate of 7.52 per thousand; the number of deaths was 10.14 million, with a mortality rate of 7.18 per thousand; and the natural population growth was 0.34 per thousand.

According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, from 2011 to 2015, China's annual number of births was above 16 million.In 2016, the comprehensive two-child policy was implemented, and the number of births in that year reached 17.86 million.In 2017, the number of births reached 17.23 million.After 2018, with the implementation of the comprehensive two-child policy the birth potential energy was basically released, the birth The number of people born in 2018 fell to 15.23 million. in 2019, China's birth population fell to 14.65 million. in 2020, there was a more substantial decline, with 12 million births in that year. in 2021, the birth population fell by another 1.38 million compared with 2020.

Why is China's birthrate declining so dramatically in 2021 and in recent years? What does a low fertility rate really mean for China? What is the focus of the current fertility policy? Southern Metropolis Daily interviewed Zhai Zhenwu, president of the China Population Society and director of the Population and Development Research Center at Renmin University of China.

Zhai Zhenwu said, the overall size of women of childbearing age decline, the contemporary young people to delay marriage and childbearing and social development brought about by the decline in fertility intentions are the three most important reasons for the decline in the number of births in 2021. In addition, the continuation of the new crown epidemic pandemic has also depressed some of the demand for births.

In the long run, the number of births in China will be at a lower level, but there is still some room for the country's fertility rate to rebound. The current focus should be on supporting policies to support fertility and building a fertility-friendly environment in general.

Zhai Zhenwu, president of the China Population Society and director of the Population and Development Research Center at Renmin University of China. According to China.org

Three reasons affecting the downward trend in the number of births in China

Nandu: Why has the number of births continued to fall sharply in the past few years?

Jai Zhenwu: One of the most direct reasons is that the number of women of childbearing age has been declining massively over the past few years, in which case, assuming a constant fertility rate, the number of births would have declined massively as well. Between about 1984-1990, there used to be a peak of fertility in China, when a large number of children were born in China, with a maximum of 25.29 million (1987) in a single year. The fertility period of this batch of births would have been roughly between 2010-2020. As you can see, between 2010-2015, the size of the annual birth cohort is still large, and one reason for this is the relatively large size of women of childbearing age.

In the 1990s, with the strict enforcement of family planning, the number of children born each year began to decrease significantly. This means that after about 20-30 years, the number of women in our country who are in the prime of their reproductive years will also be declining rapidly, and this is exactly one of the changes we are currently facing - the number of women of childbearing age has begun to decline sharply, which is one of the direct causes of the low number of births in our country.

The second reason is that nowadays young people's age of marriage and childbearing is constantly postponed. Previously, young people got married at almost 23 years old and had their first child at the age of twenty-four or twenty-five. But now the average age of people getting married for the first time is more than 26 years old, and the average age of having their first child is around 27 years old. Our society is still in the process of continually delaying the age of marriage and childbearing, and the number of births will decline from what it was before.

The third reason is the decline in fertility intentions brought about by modernization and development. This decline is a slow, long-term process of change. Moreover, many important economic and social factors affecting fertility behavior have been further intensified in the past few years, which have also pushed the fertility rate lower.

For example, China's per capita income has reached 10,000 U.S. dollars in 2020 from a few thousand dollars in 2000, an almost 10-fold increase over the past 20 years. People's education level has also risen rapidly, with a large number of young people entering universities to further their studies. The level of urbanization has reached about 64% in 2020. These are all social development factors that influence fertility behavior.

Also, it is important not to overlook the factors directly related to childbearing itself - the substantial increase in the cost of childbearing, including house prices, the cost of living, and children's education expenses. For young people nowadays, having a child is not at all the same as the concept of "adding a handful of rice" in the old days. Twenty-three or twenty-four years old, just graduated from the university, if you go to graduate school, graduation will be even later, to face the pressure of employment, work a few years to build a good economic foundation, marriage may also be later. Nowadays, there is a popular term "lying flat". How can we think about having children when we are lying flat? These are all factors affecting fertility that have changed rapidly over the past decade or so.

In the particular case of the last two years, I think there is a special influence to be added - the new coronary pandemic - and some people may have delayed their childbearing plans because of the pandemic.

Nandu: How will the population of women of childbearing age show changes? Will the downward trend in the number of births be more pronounced in the coming years as the number of women of childbearing age declines?

Jai Zhenwu: The size of women of childbearing age in China will continue to decline in the next few years, but after a few years of decline, it will be at a plateau, and will not continue to decline significantly, but may still rebound. The birth population simply depends on two variables, one is the number of women giving birth, and the other is the change in the fertility rate. If the fertility rate remains constant and the size of women of childbearing age picks up, then the number of births will also pick up.

But in the long run, I am afraid that our fertility rate will remain at a relatively low level in the future, and this is also the case in Europe, America, and the modernized countries of East Asia. Low fertility is the inevitable result of modernization and development. As our country is still in the process of modernization, it may be a general trend to keep the fertility rate at a low level. Whether or not the various supporting socio-economic policies to reduce costs and support fertility will help to raise the fertility rate depends on the effect of the policies on the ground, but I am afraid that it is not possible to raise the fertility rate substantially (e.g., to raise the total fertility rate back to the replacement level of 2.1).

Children at an experimental kindergarten in Fushan District, Yantai City, Shandong Province, Jan. 13, learn to topograph the Chinese character for fortune. Xinhua News Agency

China's fertility level still has room and potential to rebound

Nandu: During the previous adjustment of the fertility policy, academics believed that China's fertility level has a large room and potential to rebound, is this room and potential still there now?

Zhai Zhenwu: In our survey, we found that women's average fertility intentions are around the 1.8-1.9 level. This means that many people want to have two children, some people only want to have one child, and some people want to have three children, but the end result is that the seventh national census in 2020 found that the total combined fertility rate in that year was only 1.3. So all kinds of fertility support policies still have a certain amount of space to play a role. Various types of fertility support policies should also be implemented with greater vigor, including the introduction of new policies and strengthening the implementation of existing policies. Although there is room, we also have to see that the magnitude of fertility improvement may be very limited.

Nandu: Will the number of births continue to fall in the future? Might it still pick up or fluctuate?

Zhai Zhenwu: The number of births is not the same as the fertility rate, and the number of births is greatly affected by various circumstances in each year. In the short term, I think the number of births will rebound to a certain extent after the epidemic passes, but again, as we said earlier, the magnitude of the rebound will not be very large. In the future, according to the characteristics of China's demographic structure, if there is a rebound in the overall size of women of childbearing age, the number of births will also rebound to some extent. In the long run, the number of births will be on a downward trend.

Nandu: How will the implementation of the three-child birth policy affect the number of births in 2021?

Jai Zhenwu: the three-child policy was first announced in May 2021. the three children born in 2021 were all conceived before the policy was introduced, and strictly speaking the relationship with the three-child policy is not so great. The effect of the three-child policy will be seen at least until 2022, but if the epidemic remains a pandemic in 2022, it may again depress some of the demand for births. The three-child policy is actually more of a policy orientation that has to be looked at in the long run. People have a lot of concerns about having two children, and the number of three children is already very small, and it is estimated that the number of births that can be increased is only 5%, and we have analyzed this before because the number of children born in one year under the three-child policy may only be about 400,000 or so. Will the liberalization of the three-child policy increase the fertility rate by a lot? I am afraid not. I think what is more important to pay attention to in adjusting the fertility policy now is actually the economic and social policies supporting the fertility, which is more important.

On Jan. 7, a teacher at the Gucheng Kindergarten in Qingzhou City, Shandong Province, taught children to identify the ingredients of Laba congee. Xinhua News Agency

The possible impact of a low fertility rate

Nandu: In previous adjustments to the fertility policy, you were more in favor of a smooth transition. Is the continued decline in fertility rate now a kind of sudden drop, is it another kind of unsmoothness, and what will be the impact of this situation?

Zhai Zhenwu: The relatively rapid decline in the number of births means that the overall rate of aging will increase, which will exacerbate the various challenges of aging for society and for families. For example, in the future there may be more empty nesters and elderly living alone, and the problem of family old age will be more prominent. On the other hand, the faster decline in the number of births means that the size of the labor force entering society will also shrink in the next 15 years, which will have an impact on economic development. We need to improve labor productivity through the development of technology to create more value with less labor, but the upgrading of technological level requires a process. It can be said that the decline in the number of births has added to the severity of the challenge, but we can adopt policies in various aspects to try to cope with it.

Nandu: In demographic terms, is the current low fertility rate a warning sign for Chinese society? Or how is it a signal? How do you think the general public should understand the matter of low fertility rate?

Zhai Zhenwu: I think the low fertility rate can be understood from 3 aspects. First, low fertility is a result of modernization and development, which is a challenge that all countries have to face. Second, the low fertility rate should cause us to be alarmed that a total fertility rate of 1.3 or lower is not what we want to see. We believe that it would be more conducive to our economic and social development if the fertility rate could be maintained at a level like 1.5-1.6. In this sense, our fertility rate is on the low side. Thirdly, the fertility support policies in various aspects are still insufficient, and there is still some room for the fertility rate to rebound. If the policies are well implemented, the fertility rate is still expected to rise to a certain extent. In some European countries, the fertility rate once fell to 1.3-1.4, but many of them have rebounded to about 1.6, and in the Nordic countries, it has also rebounded to about 1.8. Low fertility, and even negative population growth, is actually a challenge we have to face in the future, and we hope that the pace of this change will be slower, so that we can have more time to adjust our policies in all areas to adapt to the social structure of low fertility and aging.

Still a long way from being fertility-friendly

Nandu: According to the conclusion obtained from a previous study, "by 2020, the two-child fertility potential that can be released under the prevailing conditions of economic and social development and fertility-supporting policies is gradually weakening and has come to an end". Future fertility support policies should take more account of the birth of one child?

Zhai Zhenwu: From the data of lifetime fertility rate, the results obtained from the seventh population census, if you observe the women in our country who are 40 years old, the proportion of women who have not given birth is less than 5%. These women have basically been in their childbearing years for the past 15 years, and the vast majority of them have had at least one child. This means that one-child births are still relatively common in our country. Now people find that the decline in the number of one-child births is closely related to the delay in marriage and childbearing. Many people have just postponed childbearing due to various factors, but it's not that they don't intend to have children, at least judging from the data on the lifetime fertility rate, the proportion of those who don't have children for life is not very high. Of course, in the future, the proportion of lifelong non-marriage or married infertility may increase, and we should pay attention to this problem.

One-child fertility is actually still a matter of fertility intentions in general, and there is no separate one-child fertility intention. It is not possible to say that women's desire to have one child is relatively low and their desire to have two children is quite high. If there is no one child, there is certainly no two children. The focus of fertility policy is not so much to focus on one child, but to focus on overall fertility intentions, to remove the pressure of childbirth and concerns about childbirth, and to create a fertility-friendly environment, in which case young people will have a higher willingness to have children.

Nandu: Nowadays, we often hear the term "fertility-friendly society", in your opinion, how far are we from being "fertility-friendly"?

Jai Zhenwu: In 2021, the Party Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Decision on Optimizing Fertility Policy to Promote Long-Term Balanced Development of Population", and according to the central requirements, there will be a lot of actions in the provinces, such as the extension of maternity leave, to give support to the birth of a number of children in every aspect, etc., but we are still a long way from the "fertility-friendly" gap.

For two examples, we have been saying for several years that we need to establish a comprehensive, inclusive child care system for 0-3 year olds. When couples have children, it is impossible to take three years off work, and women have to go to work, so having no one to take care of the children is a big obstacle to childbearing, which is usually solved by sending them to daycare centers, or by looking for parents or hiring household help to take care of the children. When the comprehensive two-child policy was first implemented, it was said that a system of child care services for 0-3 year olds should be built, but at present, even in the first-tier cities, there are still very few child care institutions for 0-3 year olds, and the penetration rate is still very low.

Another problem is cost. The cost of childbearing and childrearing remains high and is now on the rise, which is also a condition that is not conducive to raising the fertility rate. In fact, high housing prices are also a cost that also affects fertility.

The construction of a fertility-friendly society also involves more systemic issues, such as women's employment. In some Western countries, the curve of women's labor participation rate is bimodal, it is higher when they are young, and then in the childbearing years, women's labor participation decreases, and then after the childbearing years, the labor participation rate goes back up again. However, in China's case, after the labor participation rate rises at a young age, it stays high. Childbearing has an impact on women's employment, and once they quit their jobs to have children, their future career development will be affected, in which case women may be reluctant to have more children.

Nandu: Panzhihua has introduced a fertility support policy that gives families with two or three children a monthly subsidy of 500 yuan per child. After the release of this policy, many people began to pay attention to the maternity allowance system, can the maternity allowance reduce the cost of childbirth?

Jai Zhenwu: I think this is the right way to think about it, the maternity allowance certainly helps to reduce the cost of childbearing and parenting, but it remains to be seen whether this practice can be sustained in the long term. However, it also needs to be seen that childbirth is actually a decision under the comprehensive impact, the determining factors are all aspects, if only one aspect of a single policy is more prominent, I'm afraid the effect will not be so significant. Of course it is good to have some maternity subsidies, then how to solve the problem of bringing up children? The pressure of competition in education will still be there. What about the plight of women's career development? On the whole, I think that building a fertility-friendly society is about building an environment with integrated and complementary policies, not just one particular policy. Having said that, for there to be changes on the whole, it is necessary to have continuous policy advancement in every aspect before a synergy can be formed in the end. It is certainly encouraging for Panzhihua to explore such a policy. The national level is also promoting the introduction of 0-3 years old child care costs in personal tax deductions, although the actual individual deductions may not be a lot of money, but this policy orientation is good, but also worth encouraging.

Highlights

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On January 17, the National Bureau of Statistics released that in 2021, the annual birth population of 10.62 million people, the birth rate of 7.52 ‰; the death population of 10.14 million people, the population mortality rate of 7.18 ‰; the natural growth of the population was 0.34 ‰.

According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, from 2011 to 2015, China's annual number of births was above 16 million.In 2016, the comprehensive two-child policy was implemented, and the number of births in that year reached 17.86 million.In 2017, the number of births reached 17.23 million.After 2018, with the implementation of the comprehensive two-child policy the birth potential energy was basically released, the birth The number of people born in 2018 fell to 15.23 million. in 2019, China's birth population fell to 14.65 million. in 2020, there was a more substantial decline, with 12 million births in that year. in 2021, the birth population fell by another 1.38 million compared with that of 2020.

Why is China's birthrate declining so dramatically in 2021 and in recent years? What does a low fertility rate really mean for China? What is the focus of the current fertility policy? Southern Metropolis Daily interviewed Zhai Zhenwu, president of the China Population Society and director of the Population and Development Research Center at Renmin University of China.

Zhai Zhenwu said, the overall size of women of childbearing age decline, the contemporary young people to delay marriage and childbearing, as well as social development brought about by the decline in fertility intentions are the three most important reasons for the decline in the number of births in 2021. In addition, the continuation of the new crown epidemic pandemic has also depressed some of the demand for births.

In the long run, the number of births in China will be at a lower level, but there is still some room for the country's fertility rate to rebound. The current focus should be on supporting policies to support fertility and building a fertility-friendly environment in general.

Zhai Zhenwu, president of the China Population Society and director of the Population and Development Research Center at Renmin University of China. According to China.org

Three reasons affecting the downward trend in the number of births in China

Nandu: Why has the number of births continued to fall sharply in the past few years?

Jai Zhenwu: One of the most direct reasons is that the number of women of childbearing age has been declining massively over the past few years, in which case, assuming a constant fertility rate, the number of births would have declined massively as well. Between about 1984-1990, there used to be a peak of fertility in China, when a large number of children were born in China, with a maximum of 25.29 million (1987) in a single year. The fertility period of this batch of births would have been roughly between 2010-2020. As you can see, between 2010-2015, the size of the annual birth cohort is still large, and one reason for this is the relatively large size of women of childbearing age.

In the 1990s, with the strict enforcement of family planning, the number of children born each year began to decrease significantly. This means that after about 20-30 years, the number of women in our country who are in the prime of their reproductive years will also be declining rapidly, and this is exactly one of the changes we are currently facing - the number of women of childbearing age has begun to decline sharply, which is one of the direct causes of the low number of births in our country.

The second reason is that nowadays young people's age of marriage and childbearing is constantly postponed. Previously, young people got married at almost 23 years old and had their first child at the age of twenty-four or twenty-five. But now the average age of people getting married for the first time is more than 26 years old, and the average age of having their first child is around 27 years old. Our society is still in the process of continually delaying the age of marriage and childbearing, and the number of births will decline from what it was before.

The third reason is the decline in fertility intentions brought about by modernization and development. This decline is a slow, long-term process of change. Moreover, many important economic and social factors affecting fertility behavior have been further intensified in the past few years, which have also pushed the fertility rate lower.

For example, China's per capita income has reached 10,000 U.S. dollars in 2020 from a few thousand dollars in 2000, an almost 10-fold increase over the past 20 years. People's education level has also risen rapidly, with a large number of young people entering universities to further their studies. The level of urbanization has reached about 64% in 2020. These are all social development factors that influence fertility behavior.

Also, it is important not to overlook the factors directly related to childbearing itself - the substantial increase in the cost of childbearing, including house prices, the cost of living, and children's education expenses. For young people nowadays, having a child is not at all the same as the concept of "adding a handful of rice" in the old days. Twenty-three or twenty-four years old, just graduated from the university, if you go to graduate school, graduation will be even later, to face the pressure of employment, work a few years to build a good economic foundation, marriage may also be later. Nowadays, there is a popular term "lying flat". How can we think about having children when we are lying flat? These are all factors affecting fertility that have changed rapidly over the past decade or so.

In the particular case of the last two years, I think there is a special influence to be added - the new coronary pandemic - and some people may have delayed their childbearing plans because of the pandemic.

Nandu: How will the population of women of childbearing age show changes? Will the downward trend in the number of births be more pronounced in the coming years as the number of women of childbearing age declines?

Jai Zhenwu: The size of women of childbearing age in China will continue to decline in the next few years, but after a few years of decline, it will be at a plateau, and will not continue to decline significantly, but may still rebound. The birth population simply depends on two variables, one is the number of women giving birth, and the other is the change in the fertility rate. If the fertility rate remains constant and the size of women of childbearing age picks up, then the number of births will also pick up.

But in the long run, I am afraid that our fertility rate will remain at a relatively low level in the future, and this is also the case in Europe, America, and the modernized countries of East Asia. Low fertility is the inevitable result of modernization and development. As our country is still in the process of modernization, it may be a general trend to keep the fertility rate at a low level. Whether or not the various supporting socio-economic policies to reduce costs and support fertility will help raise the fertility rate depends on the effect of the policies on the ground, but I am afraid it is not possible to raise the fertility rate significantly (e.g., to bring the total fertility rate back to the replacement level of 2.1).

China's Fertility Level Still Has Room and Potential to Recover

NANDS: At the time of the previous adjustments to the fertility policy, the academic community believed that China's fertility level there is a large space and potential for rebound, this space and potential is still there now?

Zhai Zhenwu: In our survey, we found that women's average fertility intentions are around the 1.8-1.9 level. This means that many people want to have two children, some people only want to have one child, and some people want to have three children, but the end result is that the seventh national census in 2020 found that the total combined fertility rate in that year was only 1.3. So all kinds of fertility support policies still have a certain amount of space to play a role. Various types of fertility support policies should also be implemented with greater vigor, including the introduction of new policies and strengthening the implementation of existing policies. Although there is room, we also have to see that the magnitude of fertility improvement may be very limited.

Nandu: Will the number of births continue to fall in the future? Might it still pick up or fluctuate?

Zhai Zhenwu: The number of births is not the same as the fertility rate, and the number of births is greatly affected by various circumstances in each year. In the short term, I think the number of births will rebound to a certain extent after the epidemic passes, but again, as we said earlier, the magnitude of the rebound will not be very large. In the future, according to the characteristics of China's demographic structure, if there is a rebound in the overall size of women of childbearing age, the number of births will also rebound to some extent. In the long run, the number of births will be on a downward trend.

Nandu: How will the implementation of the three-child birth policy affect the number of births in 2021?

Jai Zhenwu: the three-child policy was first announced in May 2021. the three children born in 2021 were all conceived before the policy was introduced, and strictly speaking the relationship with the three-child policy is not so great. The effect of the three-child policy will be seen at least until 2022, but if the epidemic remains a pandemic in 2022, it may again depress some of the demand for births. The three-child policy is actually more of a policy orientation that has to be looked at in the long run. People have a lot of concerns about having two children, and the number of three children is already very small, and it is estimated that the number of births that can be increased is only 5%, and we have analyzed this before because the number of children born in one year under the three-child policy may only be about 400,000 or so. Will the liberalization of the three-child policy increase the fertility rate by a lot? I am afraid not. I think what is more important to pay attention to in adjusting the fertility policy now is actually the economic and social policies supporting the fertility, which is more important.

The possible impact of low fertility rate

Nandu: In the previous adjustments of the fertility policy, you were more in favor of a smooth transition. Now is the continued decline in fertility rate a kind of sudden drop, is it another kind of unsmoothness, and what will be the impact of this situation?

Zhai Zhenwu: The relatively rapid decline in the number of births means that the overall rate of aging will increase, which will exacerbate the various challenges of aging for society and for families. For example, in the future there may be more empty nesters and elderly people living alone, and the problem of family old age will be more prominent. On the other hand, the faster decline in the number of births means that the size of the labor force entering society will also shrink in the next 15 years, which will have an impact on economic development. We need to improve labor productivity through the development of technology to create more value with less labor, but the upgrading of technological level requires a process. It can be said that the decline in the number of births has added to the severity of the challenge, but we can adopt policies in various aspects to try to cope with it.

Nandu: In demographic terms, is the current low fertility rate a warning sign for Chinese society? Or how is it a signal? How do you think the general public should understand the matter of low fertility rate?

Zhai Zhenwu: I think the low fertility rate can be understood from 3 aspects. First, low fertility is a result of modernization and development, which is a challenge that all countries have to face. Second, the low fertility rate should cause us to be alarmed that a total fertility rate of 1.3 or lower is not what we want to see. We believe that it would be more conducive to our economic and social development if the fertility rate could be maintained at a level such as 1.5-1.6. In this sense, our fertility rate is on the low side. Thirdly, the fertility support policies in various aspects are still insufficient, and there is still some room for the fertility rate to rebound. If the policies are well implemented, the fertility rate is still expected to rise to a certain extent. In some European countries, the fertility rate once fell to 1.3-1.4, but many of them have rebounded to about 1.6, and in the Nordic countries, it has also rebounded to about 1.8. Low fertility, and even negative population growth, is actually a challenge we have to face in the future, and we hope that the pace of this change will be slower, so that we can have more time to adjust our policies in various areas to adapt to the social structure of low fertility and aging.

Still a long way from being fertility-friendly

Nandu: According to the conclusion obtained from a previous study, "by 2020, the two-child fertility potential that can be released under the prevailing conditions of economic and social development and fertility-supporting policies is gradually weakening and has come to an end". Future fertility support policies should take more account of the birth of one child?

Zhai Zhenwu: From the data of lifetime fertility rate, the results obtained from the seventh population census, if you observe the women in our country who are 40 years old, the proportion of women who have not given birth is less than 5%. These women have basically been in their childbearing years for the past 15 years, and the vast majority of them have had at least one child. This means that one-child births are still relatively common in our country. Now people find that the decline in the number of one-child births is closely related to the delay in marriage and childbearing. Many people have just postponed childbearing due to various factors, but it's not that they don't intend to have children, at least judging from the data on the lifetime fertility rate, the proportion of those who don't have children for life is not very high. Of course, in the future, the proportion of lifelong non-marriage or married infertility may increase, and we should pay attention to this problem.

One-child fertility is actually still a matter of fertility intentions in general, and there is no separate one-child fertility intention. It is not possible to say that women's desire to have one child is relatively low and their desire to have two children is quite high. If there is no one child, there is certainly no two children. The focus of fertility policy is not so much to focus on one child, but to focus on the overall desire to have children, to eliminate the pressure of childbearing and concerns about childbearing, and to create a childbearing-friendly environment, in which case young people will have a higher desire to have children.

Nandu: Nowadays, we often hear the term "fertility-friendly society", in your opinion, how far are we from "fertility-friendly"?

Jai Zhenwu: In 2021, the Party Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Decision on Optimizing Fertility Policy to Promote Long-Term Balanced Development of Population", and according to the central requirements, there will be a lot of actions in the provinces, such as the extension of maternity leave, to give support to the birth of a number of children in every aspect, etc., but we are still a long way from the "fertility-friendly" gap.

For two examples, we have been saying for several years that we need to establish a comprehensive, inclusive child care system for 0-3 year olds. When couples have children, it is impossible to take three years off work, and women have to go to work, so having no one to take care of the children is a big obstacle to childbearing, which is usually solved by sending them to daycare centers, or by looking for parents or hiring household help to take care of the children. When the comprehensive two-child policy was first implemented, it was said that a system of child care services for 0-3 year olds should be built, but at present, even in the first-tier cities, there are still very few child care institutions for 0-3 year olds, and the penetration rate is still very low.

Another problem is cost. The cost of childbearing and childrearing remains high and is now on the rise, which is also a condition that is not conducive to increasing the fertility rate. In fact, high housing prices are also a cost that also affects fertility.

The construction of a fertility-friendly society also involves more systemic issues, such as women's employment. In some Western countries, the curve of women's labor participation rate is bimodal, it is higher when they are young, and then in the childbearing years, women's labor participation decreases, and then after the childbearing years, the labor participation rate goes back up again. However, in China's case, after the labor participation rate rises at a young age, it stays high. Childbearing has an impact on women's employment, and once they quit their jobs to have children, their future career development will be affected, in which case women may be reluctant to have more children.

Nandu: Panzhihua has introduced a fertility support policy that gives families with two or three children a monthly subsidy of 500 yuan per child. After the release of this policy, many people began to pay attention to the maternity allowance system, can the maternity allowance reduce the cost of childbirth?

Jai Zhenwu: I think this is the right way to think about it, the maternity allowance certainly helps to reduce the cost of childbearing and parenting, but it remains to be seen whether this practice can be sustained in the long term. However, it also needs to be seen that childbirth is actually a decision under the comprehensive impact, the determining factors are all aspects, if only one aspect of a single policy is more prominent, I'm afraid the effect will not be so significant. Of course it is good to have some maternity subsidies, then how to solve the problem of bringing up children? The pressure of competition in education will still be there. What about the plight of women's career development? On the whole, I think that building a fertility-friendly society is about building an environment with integrated and complementary policies, not just one particular policy. Having said that, for there to be changes on the whole, it is necessary to have continuous policy advancement in every aspect before a synergy can be formed in the end. It is certainly encouraging for Panzhihua to explore such a policy. The national level is also promoting the introduction of 0-3 years old child care costs in personal tax deductions, although the actual individual deductions may not be a lot of money, but this policy orientation is good, but also worth encouraging.

(Source: Nandu reporter Wu Bin)

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