Dialogue ｜ We should consider the derivative problem of negative population growth in rural areas.

Has the "negative population growth era" come? Not long ago, a set of population data released by the National Bureau of Statistics aroused widespread concern in society. The data shows that in 2022, the national population will decrease by 850,000, and the natural population growth rate will be -0.60‰, which is the first negative population growth in China in the past 61 years. What do you think of the changes behind this population data? What problems and challenges will China’s economic and social development, especially in rural areas, face? Combined with the current rural situation, how to better deal with the negative population growth trend? In this dialogue, Yuan Xin, Duan Chengrong and Zhang Xuying are invited to exchange and discuss.

Moderator: Does the population data released this time indicate that China has entered the era of negative population growth? What do you think of this?

Duan ChengrongAt present, the number of births in China may rebound due to many factors, but in the long run, it has become an irreversible trend to enter the stage of negative population growth, so this data can basically indicate that China has entered the era of negative population growth.

The change of the overall population size is the result of the changes of both the birth population and the death population. Over the past 30 years, the birth population in China has decreased and the death population has increased, which makes the difference between the two smaller and smaller. Finally, in 2022, the birth population is not enough to offset the death population. At present, people pay more attention to the influence of birth population size on negative population growth, but the change of death population size also plays an important role.

YuanxinIn my opinion, these data do not indicate that China has entered the era of negative population growth. Accurately speaking, China is currently in the stage of zero population growth. Looking at the law of population development in all countries in the world, it is basically from positive growth to zero growth, and then to negative growth. Combined with the current situation in China, the two forces of positive and negative population growth are in a stalemate, and the outcome has not yet been decided, so it is more appropriate to describe it as zero growth.

With the establishment and improvement of China’s birth support policy system, the population born in the next few years is likely to rebound slightly, but it needs to be clear that no matter whether China has entered the era of negative population growth now, the normalized, stable and long-term trend of negative population growth has arrived. Judging from the law of population development, from the analysis of the total population, in the near future, the negative population growth will be in a relatively moderate state and the population size will be limited in the next 30 years or so; In the long run, the population will be greatly reduced. In the future, the faster the negative population growth is, the more serious the situation will be. From the analysis of population structure, the next 30 years will be a period of young aging, and the population of young elderly aged 60 to 69 will increase greatly, which provides opportunities for delayed retirement and flexible employment of young elderly labor force. But after 2050, it will turn into an aging process, and there will be more and more elderly people over 80 years old. Therefore, the next 30 years, that is, the early stage of negative population growth, is an important window of population opportunities.

China’s population situation can be described as "less worry in the near future and great worry in the far future". It takes some time for the phenomenon of negative population growth to evolve into a problem of negative population growth, but once the problem is formed, it will face more difficulties to solve, and it will be too late to solve some problems after they break out. Therefore, we must be far-sighted in our understanding of population issues, we must have enough advance, make preparations early, and we must "scientifically understand, actively adapt, and actively respond." First of all, scientifically analyze the opportunities, challenges, risks and difficulties of negative population growth in the near and long term. Secondly, on the basis of scientific understanding, we should actively adapt to the changing trend of negative population growth and tap the development opportunities of negative growth period and aging society. Finally, actively respond to various problems and challenges.

Zhang xuyingAccording to the seventh national census, the population data released this time, and the calculation results of the big data laboratory for population and development decision-making of China Population and Development Research Center, the negative population growth will be a major trend change in the process of China’s population change, and the annual birth population in China will fluctuate during the 14 th Five-Year Plan period. It is expected that the 15 th Five-Year Plan period will enter a stage of stable negative population growth. Faced with this major trend change, comprehensive, systematic and long-term responses are needed to reduce the negative impact and realize the high-quality development of 1.4 billion people.

It should also be noted that although the number of people born in 2022 fell below 10 million, China’s fertility potential is still there. Recently, there have also been positive signals such as a rebound in the proportion of one-child births and an increase in the number of children. In the future, more active fertility support policies and measures will be implemented. It is expected that the unrealized fertility wishes of middle-income groups will be released.

Moderator: In 2019, China Academy of Social Sciences predicted that China’s population would enter negative growth in 2030, and then adjusted to 2027. However, the actual situation is four years earlier than this. What are the reasons for the rapid negative population growth?

Zhang xuyingFrom the international experience and the practice in China, the issue of fertility is both a "family matter" and a "state matter". The sharp decline in the birth population is not so much a demographic phenomenon as a social change in marriage, population and family brought about by the rapid economic and social development, and it is the result of the rational choice of the younger generation. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the macro-level aspects such as population policy and social system reform in order to analyze the reasons for negative population growth.

At the same time, we must understand the demands and behaviors of young people from the micro level. Specifically, there are the following manifestations: First, the scale of women of childbearing age has declined. During 2015-2022, the scale of women aged 20-34 (the number of births accounts for about 85% of the total birth population) decreased by 5.4 million annually, which directly led to the decline in marriage and childbearing rate.

Secondly, the concept of marriage and childbearing of the younger generation has changed significantly. For example, many young people pursue independence and freedom, don’t think marriage is an inevitable experience of life, or pursue spiritual improvement as the main goal of marriage, and don’t want to be bound by childbirth. These changes in concepts have led to the postponement of marriage and childbirth.

The third is that the rising cost of "bearing, rearing and education" squeezes the willingness to bear children. Many young people who are willing to have children will weigh factors such as high housing prices and the burden of childbearing and parenting education when making fertility decisions, and often choose to postpone or even give up childbearing.

Finally, some special factors have caused the fertility rate to drop. For example, due to induced abortion, infertility and other weakened fertility; Before that, there was the influence of the COVID-19 epidemic. In 2021, it was found that among married women of childbearing age who were willing to give birth, 32.6% thought that the COVID-19 epidemic had a certain impact on the birth arrangement, and 74.6% of them considered delaying the birth.

Duan ChengrongTo explore the reasons for the rapid negative population growth, we should start with the factors that affect the number of births and deaths.

Look at the birth population first, which depends on the fertility level of women and the size of women of childbearing age. It is found that China’s population has entered the channel of negative growth since the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the past 30 years, the main reason why China’s population has not experienced negative growth is that the age structure of the population is very young and there are many women of childbearing age. However, in recent 20 years, China’s population has been aging, and the number of women of childbearing age, especially those of fertile age, has declined. In 2000, the number of women of fertile age in China was 165.96 million, and by 2020, it has decreased to 139.22 million, a decrease of about 16%, and it is expected that it will further decrease in the future.

Looking at the death population, this data is affected by the death level and age structure. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the health level of our people has been continuously improved, and their life expectancy has been getting longer and longer. However, in the past 30 years, the age structure has rapidly aged, and the number of dead people has also entered an upward channel. According to the data, the number of deaths in China has increased from more than 8 million in 2000 to 10.41 million in 2022.

Moderator: What factors affect the population growth in rural areas? What is the current situation?

YuanxinCompared with cities and towns, the negative population growth in rural areas is more severe. Because the population change in rural areas is not determined by a single factor, it is not only affected by the low fertility rate, but also by the migration and flow of population, and the latter has a greater impact.

Since the reform and opening up, the rural population has been decreasing in the rapid process of urbanization, and the urbanization rate has increased from 17.9% in 1978 to 65.2% in 2022. The rural population reached a peak of 860 million in 1995, and then began to enter the negative growth channel, until it fell to 490 million in 2022, a decrease of 43%. In other words, the negative population growth in rural areas is earlier than that in the whole country.

For a long time, the floating population has shown a typical "three eights" feature, that is, more than 80% of the population comes from rural areas, 80% enters cities and towns, and 80% is the working-age population aged 15 to 59, resulting in a large number of women and children left behind in rural areas. Theoretically, the fertility rate of rural population is higher than that of cities and towns, and the average life expectancy is lower than that of cities and towns. The speed of population decline and the process of population aging should be slower than that of cities and towns. However, in reality, it presents a completely opposite situation. The negative growth of rural population starts early and fast in quantity, and the phenomenon of rural aging early, fast and older is prominent in structure, which is mainly caused by the long-term, sustained and large number of rural labor transfer phenomenon. In the long run, the continuous outflow of a large number of rural laborers and the rapid aging of rural population are not conducive to the sustainable development of rural economy and society.

Moderator: In the past, the demographic dividend was one of the reasons for the rapid economic development in China. In your opinion, does negative population growth mean that the demographic dividend does not exist? What challenges and deep-seated impacts will negative population growth bring to economic and social development, especially agricultural and rural development? Are there new opportunities while facing challenges?

YuanxinBefore discussing, we should first make clear the difference between the concepts of "demographic opportunity" and "demographic dividend". Population opportunity is a demographic concept, which refers to the population conditions that are formed in the process of population transformation and are conducive to economic and social development. Demographic dividend is an economic concept and an economic output transformed from demographic opportunities. Population opportunities will not be automatically transformed into demographic dividends, and intermediary factors or transformation mechanisms are economic and social decisions and environments that match population opportunities. When demographic opportunities are transformed into demographic dividends, it will promote economic development; When the population opportunities are not exploited, such as the working-age population can not be employed and become unemployed, it can not be transformed into a demographic dividend, and it will be wasted. Even in the period of negative population growth, the population opportunity has changed, and the demographic dividend will continue to be released as long as there is a matching economic and social decision-making and environment.

Combined with the stage of population scale in China, in the early stage of negative population growth, that is, from now to the middle of this century, although the total population is decreasing, the scale is still huge, the working-age population is shrinking but the number is still huge, the overall quality of the total population has been greatly improved, hundreds of millions of labor force have moved in space, and the level of urbanization has been continuously improved. All these have formed new population conditions that are conducive to promoting economic development and a new population base that may be transformed into demographic dividends. Of course, in the long-term of negative population growth, such as after the middle of this century, the population quantity, structure, quality, migration and distribution will show almost completely different characteristics from the early stage of negative population growth. Therefore, we should deeply analyze the demographic characteristics and opportunities at different stages, and don’t lightly say that the demographic dividend disappears. We admit that the transition and continued existence of demographic dividend is not to deny the challenges and negative effects of negative population growth. On the contrary, we should be more aware of the new challenges brought about by negative population growth, such as the continuous input of rural population and labor force into cities and towns will be weakened, which will not only affect the development of labor-intensive industries in cities and towns, but also affect the transfer and full employment of rural labor force.

The new opportunities contained in negative population growth are mainly manifested in the improvement of labor quality. With the progress of education, the proportion of the labor force with higher education in the total population will increase even more in the future, and the demand for labor quality in China’s economic and social development will also increase continuously, which will be of great help to industrial transformation and upgrading and the development of technology-intensive industries. In addition, the active migration of population and the continuous improvement of urbanization level provide allocation population opportunities, that is to say, the mobility of labor between different positions increases, thus improving the labor participation rate and labor productivity.

Therefore, in the next 30 years, that is, in the early stage of negative population growth, China will still have mixed population opportunities such as large population, huge human resources, enhanced human capital, active population mobility and open longevity opportunities, which are in line with the economic and social development decisions in the new era and will continue to create new demographic dividends and promote high-quality economic and social development.

Duan ChengrongIn the traditional sense, the demographic dividend mainly emphasizes the demographic conditions conducive to economic development brought about by the relatively large working-age population. Therefore, the key to judge whether the demographic dividend exists is not the increase or decrease of the total population, but the change of the proportion of the working-age population. According to the sampling data, in 2022, the working-age population aged 16-59 was 876 million, accounting for 62.0% of the national population. It can be seen that the absolute scale and proportion of the working-age population are not low. Therefore, we have every reason to believe that China’s current labor resources are still rich and the demographic dividend will continue to exist.

Of course, it should also be noted that the size of China’s working-age population is continuously decreasing, and the downward trend has continued since around 2012 and will continue.

Zhang xuyingChallenges and opportunities coexist.On the one hand, we should see the challenges brought by this.For example, when the total population enters a negative growth, the "aggregation" and "contraction" of the spatial distribution of China’s population will be strengthened, which is manifested in the continuous growth of the population in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and other regions and urban agglomerations, while the population in rural areas, Northeast China and some cities may accelerate the contraction; The miniaturization of families, the proportion of one-person households and elderly families living alone will continue to rise, which will bring new requirements and challenges to the construction of public services such as old-age care.

On the other hand, we should also see opportunities that coexist, for example, the structural optimization of population pressure brought about by negative population growth.. According to estimates, by 2035, the opportunity of "traveling lightly" will be ushered in. At the same time, the increasing size of the elderly population will bring new opportunities to the optimal allocation of public service resources.

Moderator: Encouraging fertility is one of the basic strategies for countries to deal with negative population growth. Facing the trend of negative population growth, how to better encourage and support fertility in the future? As far as rural areas are concerned, what problems should be paid attention to?

Duan ChengrongIt should be recognized that the factors and mechanisms affecting the fertility level in urban and rural areas are closely related to all aspects of economic and social development. The increasing economic cost of raising children, the spread of educational anxiety, the rising risk of economic environment and employment, the intensification of conflict between women’s work and family, and the reduction of children’s demand for providing for the elderly have become important reasons for the decline of fertility rate in rural areas of China, and some of them are even gradually occupying a dominant position.

Therefore, in order to optimize and support fertility, we should not only pay attention to the fertility policy itself, but also do a good job of supporting the economic and social policies and adhere to the people-oriented policy orientation. For example, we should strengthen the coordination and linkage between the birth policy and the institutional policies such as child-rearing, education, employment, medical and health care, pension, household registration management, housing and land, and increase the ability of rural families and rural population to resist risks.

Zhang xuyingFirst of all, we should integrate the concept of supporting fertility in all fields of social development and promote the matching connection between fertility policy and related economic and social policies. For example, for middle-income groups such as large and medium-sized cities and highly educated people, we will provide enough affordable rental housing to help stabilize the expectations of young people to live in peace and boost their fertility willingness and fertility level. Another example is to speed up the control of bad social practices such as bad marriage habits and sky-high bride price in rural areas, and to develop a universal childcare service system, reduce family education expenses, protect women’s legitimate rights and interests, formulate relevant policies for women to maintain work-family balance, and stabilize women’s labor participation rate.

In this process, we should make full use of the early warning function of population monitoring tools. Set warning indicators such as the annual birth population and the proportion of children in order to take more active measures to improve the stability and predictability of population development.

YuanxinWe should have confidence, patience, perseverance and determination to promote the birth support policy in rural areas.

We should have confidence because the recovery of fertility rate is a slow variable, and it takes time to gradually adjust and push it up, and the implementation effect of fertility support policy is lagging behind, so we can’t expect to see obvious results in a short time. With the implementation of a series of policies to promote fertility formulated by the state and local governments, we must have confidence in this.

The emphasis on patience, perseverance and determination is based on the severity of the current rural aging and negative population growth, which requires more energy than cities. At the same time, the cost of childbearing in rural areas is relatively low, and the concept of attaching importance to childbearing is strong, so the implementation of fertility support policy in rural areas is flexible and has sufficient potential. As long as we find the right method and work hard, we expect to achieve better results than the city. To this end, I always believe that in the construction of the birth support policy system, we cannot overemphasize the importance attached to the countryside.

Moderator: At present, many policies, systems, social norms and traditional family customs in China were formed when the fertility rate was high and the population structure was relatively young. In the future, rural areas obviously need to make more adjustments and changes to cope with the low fertility rate and negative population growth. In this regard, what should be the main concern?

YuanxinWith the decrease of rural population, the primary concern is the change of agricultural labor supply. The traditional agricultural labor supply is insufficient. In the future, we should take the road of moderate agricultural scale management and modernization, and cultivate farmers and farmers entrepreneurs with modern skills, so as to improve agricultural labor productivity.

We should also focus on the aging situation of rural society and provide corresponding system preparation, economic preparation and infrastructure preparation. Take the old-age insurance system as an example. At present, the old-age insurance system is based on a young society. With the continuous deepening of the aging of the population, the proportion between the payers and the recipients is becoming increasingly tense. The corresponding payment standards and payment standards can no longer meet the current social needs, and should be changed according to the time.

At the same time, we should also consider a series of problems derived from the negative population growth in rural areas and the aging society, including rural old-age care, intergenerational relations of rural families, imbalance between men and women in rural areas, increasing marriage costs in rural areas, social security in rural areas, family stability in rural areas and even left-behind children in rural areas, which are closely related to negative population growth, population aging and population outflow, and need to be considered as a whole.

Moderator: Negative population growth and aging population are not unique to China. Some countries, such as Europe, Japan and South Korea, have entered the era of negative population growth in the early years and made some attempts to explore it. What lessons or inspirations can we learn from the response measures of these countries?

Duan ChengrongNegative population growth is the inevitable result of long-term low fertility after population transformation. At present, more than 30 countries have successively entered negative population growth. There are two main types of measures taken by countries: one is to alleviate or even stop the negative population growth, including encouraging fertility and encouraging immigration; The other is to adapt to the consequences of negative population growth, including pension policy reform, industrial upgrading and technological upgrading, so as to ensure the smooth operation of the economy and society.

These measures have some enlightenment to our country.First of all, establish a long-term mechanism to effectively alleviate the conflict between women’s work and family, fully release the reproductive potential of women of childbearing age, and improve the family support policy..

Secondly, aging should be treated as a lifelong process.. Strengthen health education and disease prevention, improve the medical insurance system, and gradually build a friendly and livable environment for the elderly, so as to realize active aging and healthy aging.

Third, accelerate the transformation of economic growth mode and fully stimulate the quality dividend.. Create a social environment conducive to the economic participation of women and the elderly. Improve gender discrimination in employment, delay retirement and coordinate the development of social security system, so that the elderly can play their residual heat. Force the economic growth mode and develop the population quality dividend.

Moderator: There is an old saying in China, people who have no long-term worries will have near worries. The same is true for dealing with negative population growth. Although there is still a demographic dividend in China at present, we have to make early preparations and actively respond to the challenge of negative population growth. In this process, we should focus on rural areas. On the one hand, we should fully understand the historical and realistic factors of rural population changes. On the other hand, we should make overall consideration of a series of problems derived from this, adjust and promote the birth support policy in time, and ensure the smooth operation of rural economy and society. Thank you to the three guests for visiting the Dialogue column and sharing their wonderful views!