China issues national plan on population development

2017-01-26
english.gov.cn

The State Council has released a plan for the development of the national population to be implemented during the 2016-2030 period.

According to the plan, China’s total population will reach 1.45 billion, and life expectancy will reach 79 by 2030.

To achieve moderate development in fertility levels and keep the country’s advantages in population resources, the plan seeks to keep family planning and implement the two-children policy, improve the healthcare service system for women and children, and establish and perfect policies for supporting birth, caring for children and the elderly and the development of youth.

It also urged strengthening the supply of labor resources, improving the quality of the labor force, and promoting employment to provide human capital for economic and social development.

Detailed measures to increase labor supply include cultivating innovative, practical, skillful college graduates and laborers, transforming traditional farmers to be new-type professional farmers, developing senior resources and utilizing international talent.

It also called for promoting urbanization of the rural population, and by 2020, 100 million rural population will be settled in urban areas, with guaranteed rights the same as urban residents. However, the newly transferred population should be directed to medium and small-scale cities, and the population of large cities and metropolitan areas must be controlled.

The population groups of seniors, women, children, the disabled and the poor should receive great attention, the plan stressed, adding that a better social environment for caring for senior citizens should be built.

It required sticking to the policy that men and women are equal, and including gender equality in the legal system to protect the lawful rights of women.

The plan proposed improving the welfare system for teenagers and children, providing subsidies to the disabled and poor, setting up a rehabilitation assistance system for disabled children and making sure all the poor population in rural areas under the current standards would be out of poverty by 2020.

It stressed efforts to speed up the establishment of a national population database, integrate the population data in education, public security, civil affairs departments and household registration to achieve the inter-connectivity of basic information.

The plan also required studying the population forecast technologies and models to monitor population changes, and scientifically analyze and forecast the influence of population changes on major national decisions, reform and the construction of big projects.