Under the dual pressure of a declining birth rate and an aging population, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee will decide to open up the three-child policy, meaning that each family can have three children. In addition, the authorities are discussing a gradual delay of the statutory retirement age. However, the response from the private sector has been lukewarm, with many believing that China is not ready to have children.
The birth rate has been declining year by year across China, and there have been calls for a complete abolition of the family planning policy, but no official response has been made. Xinhua reported on Monday that the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting on the same day to hear a report on major policy initiatives to actively deal with population aging during the 14th Five-Year Plan period and to consider the Decision on Optimizing the Fertility Policy for Long-term Balanced Population Development. It is mentioned that “the policy of allowing a couple to have three children and supporting measures” should be implemented, “the implementation of the three-child birth policy should be organized in accordance with the law”, and the study of the national medium- and long-term population development strategy and regional population development planning should be deepened to promote long-term balanced population development. The above news has caused a lot of discussion among netizens.
The above news has aroused heated debate among netizens, some of whom have left messages that many young people are now forced to “lie flat” and do not want to get married and have children, the three-child policy is estimated to be of little use. Zhang Jianping, a rights activist in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, told the station that the birth rate should follow nature and should not be interfered with artificially.
“In the past, family planning was wrong, and now encouraging births is wrong again, when the economic development to a certain extent, the population births will naturally decline. Canada, Taiwan and other places, the population is declining, but the authorities will not intervene. Like some developed countries and regions have free health care, free education, and yet his population growth is not human intervention. Now we are actually making another mistake.”
China’s middle class can’t afford to raise three children
In an interview with Radio Free Asia this Monday, Gu Guoping, a retired Shanghai professor, said that many people now can afford to have children, but cannot afford to raise them.
“You can’t even afford to raise one child now, it costs a lot to raise one now, not to mention raising two or three. Now the people’s income is too low. In the 50s and 60s, there was not such a big gap in income. You ask the people to have two children, three children, two children is still possible, three children who will be born? It’s such a big expense.”
After the Chinese government implemented the “comprehensive two-child” policy in 2015, except for a brief surge in 2016, its newborn birth rate declined for four consecutive years, and in 2020 it dropped nearly 15 percent from the previous year.
The key reason why most people are reluctant to have children is that they have little income to cope with raising children. Weibo users “azure900” message, after 80, 90, only child of the two generations, a couple to support four elderly, and then pull 3 children, dry to 65 years old, not yet receive a pension, then hang 。。。。。 The experts can not give these two generations, each issued a martyr certificate ah, for the country and died for the country.
Delayed retirement helps relieve pressure on social security fund
The day, the Chinese Communist Party Political Bureau meeting also mentioned “to properly implement a gradual delay in the statutory retirement age” and “explore the establishment of long-term care insurance system framework,” etc.. Earlier, many Chinese scholars suggested that the retirement age for men should be extended from the current 60 years to 65 years. This proposal has aroused the discontent of netizens that artificially delaying retirement is tantamount to increasing social security payments and receiving less pension.
China’s social security fund has had a shortfall of income and expenditure for many years in a row since 2014, and the shortfall has been more than 700 billion in 2020, with the central government requiring central and state-owned enterprises to transfer social security in accordance with the 10% equity ratio of the group’s parent company from 2018.
In this regard, Zhang Jianping said that China’s move may have referred to the Russian retirement system.
“The retirement age in Russia is 65 (for men), and their (men’s) average life expectancy is only 67 years. You can’t help it, because there are too many officials to support. And with his two-track pension system, the gap between the privileged class and the ordinary people is just too big. As far as this phenomenon is concerned, he has no choice but to do it.”
The current legal retirement age in China is 60 for men, 55 for female cadres and 50 for female workers. Youjun, vice minister of China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, said at a conference at the State Information Office on Feb. 26 that this rule was determined at the beginning of the founding of New China based on many factors such as per capita life expectancy, labor conditions and employment practices at that time, but after the reform and opening up, China’s economy and society have undergone tremendous changes, and the problem of the overall low retirement age has become very prominent.
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