Families should make their planning

The National Health Commission has said the family planning policy should not be completely scrapped immediately. Instead, we should seriously consider a population policy to increase China's low fertility rate.

Thanks to four decades of reform and opening-up, China has stepped into a new era characterized by sustainable yet relatively high economic growth and an aging society and low fertility rate. In the future, China's demographic problem will not be a booming population, but a shrinking population due to the low fertility rate, aging population and unbalanced population structure.

Owing to the declining 1-to-14-year-old population, the population of working age people will sharply decline. The ratio of 1-to-14-year-olds to the total population dropped from 33 percent in 1982 to 22 percent in 1990, sliding further to 18 percent in 2000 and 16.6 percent in 2010.

In the long run, the low fertility rate and low adolescent population ratio will seriously undermine the potential of sustainable development.

A young labor force is the main power propelling a country's economic and social development, and the scale and ratio of young adult population are a sensitive and important indicator of a country's "population power".

China's labor force population began declining in 2012, with the total reduced labor force adding up to 25 million after six continuous years of decline. According to the sixth national census in 2010, China's newborn population has been declining rapidly since the 1990s－from 28 million in 1990 to less than 15 million in 1999. Besides, in the decade since 2015, the population of women aged between 22 and 31 will drop by more than 40 percent.

Low fertility rate and declining adolescent population have led to many structural population problems including a shortage of human resources, and declining population of women and female nursing staff, which will undermine social development in the long run.

In the future, China is likely to face severe demographic challenges because of a sharp decline in population thanks to the low fertility rate.

More importantly, despite China launching a new family planning policy in January 2016 allowing all couples to have two children, the newborn population has been declining.

In 2017, a total of 8.83 million second offspring were born in China－1.62 million more than 2016. But the total number of first child born in 2017 was only 7.24 million－2.49 million less than 2016. And in 2018, China's overall newborn population was only 15.23 million, which fell by 2 million compared with 2017－and it is expected to further decline in 2019.

Given that China's total fertility rate today is 1.6, it is expected to face negative growth in 2027. In fact, China has already fallen into the low fertility trap, and its population growth pattern can be described as typically "low birth rate, low death rate and low natural growth", which is very similar to that in developed countries.

But since the pace of population decline in China is much faster than expected, it demands special attention.

Population determines the future and the labor force is the most active productivity factor of a country while a young population an important asset to a country, especially if it is facing an aging population.

A moderate and rational population growth along with a moderate fertility rate is crucial to the sustainability of a country's economic development. And since none of the above factors is in favor of China, it should pay particular attention to the strategic reserve of "population asset" and take effective measures to raise the fertility rate. For example, the government should implement appropriate policies to ensure the total fertility rate rises above 1.8 percent. This is particularly important because China's total fertility rate in 2015 was only 1.05 percent.

To raise the total fertility rate above 1.8 percent, however, a majority of couples in China have to have two children. But in reality, a huge number of young couples cannot afford to have a second child because of the high cost of raising children.

So China's families should truly make their planning, and the nation should implement measures to encourage all couples to have more children.

The author is a professor at the Institute of Population Research, Peking University.