The population issue has always been an overall, long-term and strategic issue facing our country, and population development is a major event related to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. At the first meeting of the 5th Central Finance and Economic Commission held on May 5, General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward important thesis and work requirements for supporting Chinese-style modernization with high-quality population development. This is a major deployment made by the Party Central Committee for population work in view of the new situation of China's population development with an eye to the strategic arrangement of comprehensively building a modern socialist country, and is also a further enrichment and development of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era in terms of population issues, which has great theoretical and practical significance. We must comprehensively and profoundly comprehend and conscientiously implement it.
Deeply understand the great significance of promoting high-quality population development
Our party has always attached great importance to the population issue and has always placed the population work in the overall planning of the cause of the party and the state. After the founding of New China, the party led the people to actively explore a population development path suited to the national conditions. After the reform and opening up, our party focused on the overall situation of socialist modernization, adhered to the comprehensive decision-making on population and development, established family planning as a basic national policy, effectively controlled the excessive population growth and the pressure brought about, and strongly supported the reform and opening up and socialist modernization. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has focused on the new changes in the population situation, scientifically grasped the law of population development, and made strategic decisions to gradually adjust and improve the birth policy and promote the long-term balanced development of the population.
At present, we have embarked on a new journey of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way, and China's population development has also entered a new stage. At the end of 2022, China's total population decreased by 85,<> people compared with the end of the previous year. With the changes in economic and social development and population age structure, China's population development has shown the trend characteristics of declining birthrate, aging, and regional population growth and decrease. We must comprehensively understand and correctly view the new situation of China's population development. On the whole, China's population development trend conforms to the general law of world modernization development, and it is necessary to dialectically analyze the impact of population decline on economic and social development. At present and for a long time to come, the scale of China's population and labor force is still huge, especially the level of education of the whole people continues to improve, and from the perspective of the world, China's comprehensive demographic dividend still has obvious advantages.
In the face of the new situation of population development, the Party Central Committee has put forward a new concept of high-quality population development and called for high-quality population development to support Chinese-style modernization, which is of extreme importance and urgency.
This is an inevitable requirement for promoting high-quality development. Since the Industrial Revolution, the population of many countries has shifted from high growth to low growth or even negative growth, and the economy has also shifted from extensive development to intensive development. High-quality development is the primary task of building a modern socialist country in an all-round way, and under the condition that the total population begins to decrease, we must pay more attention to the quality and quality improvement of the population, accelerate the shaping of the talent dividend in the new era, and promote economic development from relying on labor and other factor inputs to relying on human capital upgrading and innovation.
This is an inevitable requirement for building a new development pattern. In the face of the obvious weakening of the traditional international cycle and the unprecedented fierce global talent game, only by promoting the high-quality development of the population and continuously expanding the team of high-level innovative talents and skilled workers can we accelerate the promotion of scientific and technological self-reliance, build a modern industrial system, greatly increase the income of workers, continue to expand consumer demand, and accelerate the construction of a new development pattern with domestic circulation as the main body and domestic and international dual circulation promoting each other.
This is an inevitable requirement for promoting common prosperity. Man is not only the means of social production, but also the end of social production. Promoting the high-quality development of the population and promoting the transformation of population work from mainly regulating quantity to improving quality, stabilizing the total amount, optimizing the structure, and smoothing the flow is conducive to creating more inclusive and fair conditions for the people to improve their education level and enhance their development ability. Effectively breaking down the institutional barriers that hinder the social mobility of labor and talents, and continuously improving the human capital and skill level of the whole society is an important way and urgent task to enhance the ability to get rich, narrow the income gap, and gradually realize the common prosperity of all the people.
In-depth understanding of the scientific connotation of high-quality population development
The first meeting of the 20th Central Finance and Economic Commission put forward: "Improve the population development strategy in the new era, understand, adapt to and lead the new normal of population development, focus on improving the overall quality of the population, strive to maintain a moderate fertility level and population scale, accelerate the shaping of modern human resources with excellent quality, sufficient total amount, optimized structure and reasonable distribution, and support Chinese-style modernization with high-quality population development." "The connotation of high-quality population development is very rich, mainly including the following aspects.
Excellent quality. Improving the overall quality of the population and cultivating the comprehensive competitiveness of the population are the core essence and urgent tasks of promoting the high-quality development of the population. China has built the world's largest education system, the average number of years of education of the new labor force has reached 14 years, the gross enrollment rate of higher education has increased to 59.6%, but there is still a gap compared with developed countries, skilled workers account for only 27% of the total number of employees, high-level innovative talents are still insufficient, it is necessary to generally improve the scientific and cultural quality of the whole people, strengthen the support of high-quality and high-skilled human resources. China's average life expectancy has reached 78.2 years, but the health level of key groups needs to be further improved, and it is necessary to improve the health quality of the population and improve healthy life expectancy by strengthening the health management of major chronic diseases.
The total amount is abundant. Achieving a moderate fertility level and promoting sustainable population development are important contents and bottom-line requirements for promoting high-quality population development. China's total population has shown negative growth, but it will remain on the order of 13.<> billion until the middle of this century, when the scale of the labor force will still be equivalent to the combined labor force of the United States, Japan and Europe, which will provide continuous domestic demand support and factor guarantee for China's modernization. At the same time, it should be noted that the main contradiction of China's population has changed from the pressure of excessive rapid growth to the pressure of maintaining long-term balanced population development, and efforts should be made to promote the realization of moderate fertility levels and promote long-term balanced population development.
Structural optimization. Achieving a reasonable balance in the age and gender structure of the population and the effective supply of labor resources are the basic requirements for promoting the high-quality development of the population. At present, the gender structure of China's population continues to improve, and the main contradictions of the population structure are concentrated in the decline of birthrate and aging. In 2022, the proportion of children aged 0-14 in China will be 16.9%, and it is expected to drop to about 2035.10% by 5; The proportion of the population over 60 years old is 19.8%, which is expected to rise to about 2035% by 30. It is necessary to promote benign reproduction of the population, avoid the imbalance of the age structure of the population, and at the same time enhance the adaptability of economic and social development to the aging of the population, and do everything possible to improve the efficiency of human resource utilization.
Reasonably distributed. Promoting more active population and labor flow between urban and rural areas and between regions, and forming a smooth, orderly, reasonable and fair population flow and distribution pattern, is an important aspect of promoting high-quality population development. In 2020, China's floating population reached 3 million, and the urbanization rate of the permanent population increased to 76.2022% in 65. However, the urbanization process of the floating population is relatively lagging behind, and the urbanization rate of the household registration population is lower than that of the permanent population. It is necessary to grasp the objective law of population flow in the process of modernization, promote industry to follow functions, population to follow industry, and public services to follow people, and promote the balanced layout, reasonable agglomeration and orderly flow of population between urban and rural areas and regions.
To promote high-quality population development, we need to grasp several major principles. First, we should focus on the coordination and mutual promotion of material production and population production, and make overall plans to grasp the high-quality development of the population and the high-quality development of the economy and society. Second, proceeding from the overall situation of Chinese-style modernization, we persist in making overall plans for the population issue with a systematic concept. The third is to persist in promoting high-quality population development through reform and innovation, and pay more attention to the use of "guidance" and "incentives" to improve the ability and level of population governance. Fourth, adhere to the people-centered approach, closely integrate the high-quality development of the population with the people's high-quality life, and closely integrate "investing in people" with "investing in things", so as to effectively promote the all-round development of people and the common prosperity of all the people.
Accurately grasp the key tasks of supporting Chinese-style modernization with high-quality population development
To support China's modernization with high-quality population development, we need to grasp the following key tasks.
Comprehensively improve the comprehensive quality of the population. It is necessary to establish a human capital investment and public service guarantee mechanism covering the whole life cycle and involving multiple fields, and comprehensively improve the education quality, health level and civilization literacy of the population. It is necessary to regard building a strong country in education as a strategic project to promote high-quality population development. Highlight the orientation of fairness and quality, and consolidate the educational foundation for improving the quality of the population. Optimize the educational structure and improve the compatibility between talent training and high-quality economic and social development. Cultivate top-notch innovative talents and accelerate the construction of the world's important talent centers and innovation highlands. Strengthen digital empowerment and build a learning society. It is necessary to comprehensively improve the health level of the population. In-depth implementation of maternal and child health promotion actions to ensure the healthy growth of children, reduce "small glasses", "small fat mounds" and "small bean sprouts". Carry out the Healthy China Initiative in depth, protect people's health in an all-round and full-cycle manner, and extend healthy life expectancy. It is necessary to further enhance the ideological and moral quality of the population. Strengthen the guidance of socialist core values, inherit traditional Chinese virtues, and improve the moral level and civilization literacy of the whole people.
Accelerate the improvement of the birth support policy system. It is necessary to play a good policy "combination fist" and accelerate the establishment and improvement of an all-round, three-dimensional, multi-level and landable fertility support policy system. It is necessary to strengthen time support, standardize the setting and full implementation of maternity leave, and implement the responsibilities of the government, employers, individuals and other parties. It is necessary to strengthen economic support, consider marriage, childbirth, parenting, and education as a whole, comprehensively implement policies, make precise efforts, and improve and implement positive fertility support measures such as finance, taxation, insurance, education, housing, and employment. It is necessary to strengthen service support, vigorously develop the inclusive childcare service system, continue to optimize service supply, and continuously improve service levels. It is necessary to strengthen cultural support, advocate respect for the social value of childbirth, attach importance to family building, promote the reform of marriage customs, and build a childbirth-friendly society.
Efforts should be made to increase the effective supply of labor in the whole society. In the face of the new situation of China's population development, we must not only focus on improving the quality of the population, stabilizing the fertility level, but also deeply tap the potential of human resources. It is necessary to build a high-quality full employment work system, strengthen the protection of labor security rights and interests of workers in flexible employment and new employment forms, and stabilize the labor participation rate of key groups. Advocate the correct concept of career choice, focus on promoting the matching of supply and demand, and do everything possible to do a good job in youth employment. Effectively eliminate gender discrimination and increase women's employment in the workforce. Support the employment and entrepreneurship of persons with disabilities who have the ability and willingness to work. Break down institutional barriers that hinder labor mobility, help migrant workers move to cities with peace of mind and stable employment, continue to promote the urbanization of agricultural transfer population, and increase the urbanization rate of permanent residents and household registration population.
Actively respond to the aging of the population. Actively responding to the aging of the population is an important aspect of promoting high-quality population development in the new era. It is necessary to accelerate the construction of the basic old-age service system. Support the gathering of elderly care resources to the community and the masses, and accelerate the construction of an elderly care service system that is coordinated by home community institutions and combines medical care and health care. It is necessary to vigorously cultivate the silver economy. To adapt to the structural transformation of the needs of the elderly, cultivate and develop a large silver economic market, and better combine the improvement of the well-being of the elderly, the expansion of domestic consumption, and the exploration of new economic momentum. It is necessary to deepen the reform of the social insurance system, accelerate the development of a multi-level and multi-pillar endowment insurance system, increase the proportion of the second and third pillars, and increase the pension wealth reserve of the whole society.
Better coordinate the coordinated development of population with economy, society, resources and environment. Economic, social and ecological construction should adapt to the new situation of population development, and promote the formation of systematic integration effects between population and financial, monetary, employment, industrial, investment, consumption, ecological and regional policies. Pay full attention to the impact of demographic changes on macroeconomic operations, and expand consumption and investment in a targeted manner. Adapt to the new trend of population change to build a modern industrial system, and lead industrial transformation and upgrading with demand structure upgrading and human capital leapfrogging. Adapt to the new requirements of population flow, optimize the regional economic layout, and improve the mechanism for linking staffing, land supply, fiscal transfer, public services and population growth and decrease. Grasp the process of urban and rural population mobility, promote rural revitalization, and vigorously cultivate a new type of professional farmer team. Seize the new opportunities contained in the development of population reduction, promote environmental protection and ecological construction, and strengthen the restoration of the ecological environment. (People's Daily)