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Lei Xiaoyan: Childbearing Policy in Need of Change

May 26-2021   



China should adjust its childbearing policy and scrap any limits on the number of births that a woman wishes for, says Prof. Lei Xiaoyan of the NSD in a recent forum. She heads the PKU Center for Healthy Aging and Development Studies.

 

In her speech, she distills some important trends out of the 7th national census and offers her advice with regard to population policy. The overall dependency ratio, including elderlies and children alike, has hit an upward trajectory since 2010, rising from 34.2% in that year to 45.9% in 2020. The mounting proportion of the elderly accounts for the bulk of the increase.

 

The fertility rate has long lingered under 1.6 and slid to 1.3 in 2020, despite a minor uptick after the abolition of the one-child policy; in the meantime, the number of women of childbearing age (15-49) has been on a continuous decline since 2011. The two factors have combined to bring about an obvious drop in the number of newborn babies in recent years.

 

An urban-rural divide can be observed in fertility rate and the wiliness to give birth, with the urbanites trailing their rural counterparts in both metrics. Age-wise, the younger the women, the less willing they are to have babies. Women born in the 1990s are far more likely than other generations to report a total uninterest in bearing children.

 

When further examined, a gap of 0.42 surfaces between childbearing willingness and actual births. In other words, childbearing wish doesn’t materialize.

 

Besides flinging open the childbearing policy and allow women to give as many births as they wish, China can take some other measures to address population decline and aging, says Prof. Lei. Both childbearing and nursing costs should be reduced. For example, childbearing allowances should be increased considerably, and kindergartens can be made a part of compulsory education. Education should receive more government funding so that the so-called ‘involution’ – costly frictions for families – can be ironed out.

Lei Xiaoyan: Childbearing Policy in Need of Change

May 26-2021   



China should adjust its childbearing policy and scrap any limits on the number of births that a woman wishes for, says Prof. Lei Xiaoyan of the NSD in a recent forum. She heads the PKU Center for Healthy Aging and Development Studies.

 

In her speech, she distills some important trends out of the 7th national census and offers her advice with regard to population policy. The overall dependency ratio, including elderlies and children alike, has hit an upward trajectory since 2010, rising from 34.2% in that year to 45.9% in 2020. The mounting proportion of the elderly accounts for the bulk of the increase.

 

The fertility rate has long lingered under 1.6 and slid to 1.3 in 2020, despite a minor uptick after the abolition of the one-child policy; in the meantime, the number of women of childbearing age (15-49) has been on a continuous decline since 2011. The two factors have combined to bring about an obvious drop in the number of newborn babies in recent years.

 

An urban-rural divide can be observed in fertility rate and the wiliness to give birth, with the urbanites trailing their rural counterparts in both metrics. Age-wise, the younger the women, the less willing they are to have babies. Women born in the 1990s are far more likely than other generations to report a total uninterest in bearing children.

 

When further examined, a gap of 0.42 surfaces between childbearing willingness and actual births. In other words, childbearing wish doesn’t materialize.

 

Besides flinging open the childbearing policy and allow women to give as many births as they wish, China can take some other measures to address population decline and aging, says Prof. Lei. Both childbearing and nursing costs should be reduced. For example, childbearing allowances should be increased considerably, and kindergartens can be made a part of compulsory education. Education should receive more government funding so that the so-called ‘involution’ – costly frictions for families – can be ironed out.