Guaranteeing childbirth in accordance with the law, the "family event" and "national event", the
population and family planning law is planned to be revised around the implementation of the three-child policy.
□ Our reporter Chen Lei
□ Our newspaper trainee reporter Sun Tianjiao
The Beijing girl Liu Jie (pseudonym) is a "90" born, 31 years old. After graduating with a master's degree, she worked in a public institution and is currently single.
Due to her busy schedule, she has no intention of looking for a partner, and she has no time to take care of childbirth.
Most of her classmates who stay and work in Beijing are also single, and most of them live in rented houses.
"It's not easy to feed yourself. When it comes to getting married and having children, the cost is too high." Liu Jie said.
Liu Jie and her classmates who got married and gave birth late are not alone.
A reporter from the Rule of Law Daily found that late childbirth is relatively common at present, and the women interviewed by the reporter basically give birth to children between the ages of 25 and 35.
Correspondingly, at the national level, the number of new births has been declining every year in recent years.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics: my country's population was 17.23 million in 2017, 15.23 million in 2018, 14.65 million in 2019, and 12 million in 2020.
Ren Yuan, a professor at Fudan University and deputy director of the Population Research Institute, said in an interview that the long-term low fertility rate reflects to a certain extent that people's fertility behavior is restricted.
These restrictions also reflect that the socio-economic system is unfriendly to human fertility.
In recent years, Zhi Zhenfeng, a researcher at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has been studying and improving family planning laws and regulations. In his view, the population situation is developing dynamically.
In the 1980s, in order to cope with the intensification of contradictions between population, nature and other aspects of society, my country gradually established a family planning system with fertility regulation as the core.
After long-term efforts, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era, and population development has also entered a stage of deep transformation. The balanced development of the country's population and population security are facing new challenges. The Party Central Committee and the State Council have been adjusting my country's fertility policy in due course.
"However, the previous institutional inertia led to insufficient and unequal investment in public services for population and fertility, and did not greatly increase the people's willingness to give birth. The implementation of the three-child policy has become inevitable." Zhi Zhenfeng said.
On December 31, 2015, the "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Implementing the Comprehensive Two-Child Policy Reform and Improving the Management of Family Planning Services" was issued, proposing that "my country's population development is showing a major turning point."
Ren Yuan believes that a far-reaching significance of this move by the Party Central Committee and the State Council lies in fostering a friendly reproductive environment in the whole society by improving supporting policies to support reproductive services and family development.
Since then, 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities across the country have successively revised local population and family planning laws and regulations, promulgated local regulations, and normative documents to encourage people to have children according to policies.
The reporter's statistics found that most places across the country have issued normative documents to strengthen care services for infants and children under the age of 3, including full implementation of policies such as maternity leave and paternity leave for spouses, and actively exploring the trial and implementation of parental leave and maternity that are linked to infant care services. Measures such as vacations.
In Ren Yuan’s view, policy practices across the country are very good explorations, which are not only conducive to reducing the burden of family childbirth, but also conducive to ensuring the healthy growth of infants and young children, and generally increasing support for childbirth and raising children. Policy practice is aimed at a comprehensive second-child policy, and cannot be equated with a policy of encouraging childbirth.
"In fact, the government should provide public services and guarantee support for the health of all children." Ren Yuan said.
Zhi Zhenfeng also pointed out that the implementation of these policies and local laws and regulations has provided useful explorations for the transformation of family planning services and its management system with the goal of suppressing excessive population growth, laying a foundation for better adaptation to the development of the population situation and the needs of families.了基。 The foundation.
However, he believes that these measures have not been able to reverse the problem of low fertility levels in my country in recent years. "It should be noted that the current factors affecting fertility are becoming more and more diverse, especially in the aspects of family financial burden, infant and child care, schooling in kindergartens, and female career development. The problems reported by the masses are particularly prominent."
Now, those problems reported by the masses are expected to be resolved.
The revision of my country's major law in the field of population-the Population and Family Planning Law is about to proceed, and the act of giving birth to three children is about to enter the stage of legal protection.
On August 13 this year, the Legal Work Committee of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress held a press conference and announced that the draft amendment to the Population and Family Planning Law will be submitted to the 30th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress for initial deliberation.
It is understood that in terms of optimizing the fertility policy, the main provisions of the draft amendment to the Population and Family Planning Law include: the state adopts comprehensive measures to promote the realization of an appropriate fertility level, optimize the population structure, and promote the long-term balanced development of the population.
The state promotes marriage and childbirth of the right age, prenatal and postnatal care, and implements a policy that a couple can have three children.
Cancel social support payments and delete regulations that are not compatible with the three-child policy.
The draft amendment to the Population and Family Planning Law mainly proposes the following active birth support measures: The state adopts support measures to reduce the burden of family birth, nurturing, and education.
Medical and health institutions are required to provide peri-pregnancy and pregnancy and childbirth health care services, and strengthen support and guidance for infant and child care.
Promote the establishment of an inclusive childcare service system, improve the accessibility and fairness of services for infants and young children, and standardize childcare services.
Support qualified places to explore the establishment of parental leave.
In the residential communities, we will build venues for activities for infants and young children and supporting service facilities, and provide facilities for mothers and infants in public places and workplaces in accordance with regulations.
In Zhi Zhenfeng's view, the population issue is a country's overall, long-term, and strategic issue.
"It is urgent to raise the party's propositions and the people's wishes into national laws through legal procedures, to ensure the smooth implementation of the party's major strategic decisions, and to protect the people's right to independent reproduction."
He believes that the core content of legislative activities is to establish and improve the population and reproductive public service system, guarantee and promote the people to exercise their reproductive rights, and promote the long-term, high-quality and balanced development of the population.
Ren Yuan pointed out that for the long-term development of the country, to promote the adjustment and improvement of public policy on childbirth, it is urgent to remove unreasonable restrictions on people's independent childbirth, provide necessary public services and support for people's childbirth, and build a more effective method for childbearing. Friendly social system.
"This requires the adoption of corresponding legislative forms, perfecting services for childbirth and supporting relevant legislation, and introducing a special legal system to enable people to have the right to reproduce independently, and at the same time provide corresponding legal guarantees for public childbearing services." Ren Yuan said.
Ren Yuan believes that the previous family planning was mainly a public policy that regulated people’s behavior by administrative means. However, as the country’s population situation changes, the future fertility policy is a public policy that satisfies people’s family planning and is reflected in public services for people’s fertility. And support.
As the public policy of childbirth changes, the population and family planning legislation as a policy guarantee also needs to be changed accordingly to ensure that the legislation and reform decisions are consistent.
Zhi Zhenfeng suggested that the main content of population and fertility legislation should at least include top-level design, fertility public services, family parenting public services, rewards and social security, etc., and cultivate a child-friendly and child-friendly social environment and atmosphere in accordance with the law, and establish a child-friendly and child-friendly social environment and atmosphere. A country that is friendly and fertility-friendly.
Many experts interviewed by reporters unanimously believe that childbirth is a major event in life, a family celebration, and a major national event. The revision of the Population and Family Planning Law or the unification of legislation is imminent.