同异｜两会特别节目：解决人口问题的政策需要更加人性化

Ms. Li, a human resources officer, said that “If the population continues to decline, it will have an impact on society as a whole. And it will affect every aspect of our own lives.”

从事人力资源方面工作的李女士说：“人口持续下降会对整个社会都产生影响。对我们自己的生活各方面也都会有影响。”

China’s birth rate has been falling. To slow down the fall, the Chinese government adopted the two-child policy in 2016. Couples are allowed to have a second child. But it wasn’t enough. Ten million babies were born in 2021, down from 12 million recorded in 2020 and 14 million in 2019. As a result, 2021 saw the slowest population growth in nearly 60 years. It grew by only 480,000 people. Meanwhile, the over 60 population increased by more than 3 million from 2020 to 2021.

近年，中国的出生率持续下降。为减缓跌势，中国政府于2016年实施全面两孩政策。夫妻可以生养两个孩子。但是这不足以缓解整体趋势。2021年，1000万婴儿出生，低于2020年的1200万和2019年的1400万。2021年也是近60年来人口增长最慢的一年，仅增长了48万人。与此同时，从2020年到2021年，60岁以上的人口增长数超过300万。

And in 2021, the three-child policy was enacted. 

2021年，三孩政策全面实施。

An aging population presents legitimate concerns for our economy and society. As a result, the nation is calling for more newborns. But, people aren’t just numbers on paper. For the general public, every adult has his or her own priorities when it comes to life choices. Having kids is a choice and a very personal one. 

人口老龄化对我们的经济和社会造成了一些问题。中国正在鼓励适龄夫妻多生孩子。但是，人口不仅仅是个数字。对于普通大众来说，每个成年人在做生活选择的时候都有自己的优先事项。而是否生孩子是一个选择，且是一个非常个人的选择。

In between lies, for the lack of a better word, the “conflict.”

 这种情况下就产生了“冲突”。

Ms. Li, a stay-at-home mom, said in the interview that “For example, as far as I’m concerned, I think it’s financially stressful to have even just one child now because we tend to give our child better natal and prenatal care and a better upbringing nowadays.” A lot of manpower and material resources have been invested in the kid, she said. “So I think this is why many young adults choose to not have children. A major factor is the economic concerns,” Li told us.

全职妈妈李女士在采访中说到：“就我来说，我觉得现在生一个孩子经济方面压力比较大。因为现在都讲优生优育。”她认为，现在在人力、物力等各个方面都投入很多。李女士说：“所以我觉得很多年轻人不生孩子，我觉得主要（是）这方面的原因，比较大的因素就是经济。”

Mr. Li, a media professional, said that he feels everyday living pressure, pressure from work and family pressures are all pretty heavy.

在媒体行业里工作的李先生认为现在生活、工作、家庭等各方面的压力都比较大。

University student Ms. Lin believes the source of the pressure and burden is education. “Taking myself as an example, my parents invested most of their resources into my education during my upbringing. So I feel that if every kid takes up that much investment, it’d be quite a heavy burden for the parents,” she said.

大学生林同学则认为教育是压力和负担的来源。她说：“像我个人的话，我觉得在成长的过程当中，我父母对我最大的资金投入就是在教育方面。所以我觉得如果说每一个孩子都用同样的资金去投入的话，对于一个家庭来说，父母其实是有非常大的负担和压力。”

Pressure, pressure, pressure, and expensive, that’s what you hear.

你听到的就是：压力、压力、压力、花销大。

When people talk about having children in China these days, they usually ask two questions: First, do we want to have children? Second, can we afford to have one?

当中国人谈起生孩子，通常会问两个问题：第一，我们要不要孩子？第二，我们养得起孩子么？

The rising standard of life created by China’s economic development is making the idea of raising children more daunting. As you can see from the people we talked to, if you want to do it right, it means more time, energy and money invested. But then, the lack of kids could make sustaining that standard difficult. So the fear is that, without enough population growth, we wouldn’t be able to maintain the economic growth we’ve enjoyed for the last decades. 

随着中国的经济发展带来生活水准的不断提高，对父母抚养孩子提出了更高的要求。正如你从我们采访过的人那里听到的那样，如果要“养好”一个孩子，就意味着投入更多的时间、精力和金钱。但是，国家缺乏新生儿也可能会让维持现有的经济发展和生活水准变得困难。有人惧怕的是，如果没有足够的人口增长，我们将无法维持过去几十年来享受的经济增长。

Yong Cai, Assistant Professor of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill, said that “We will see a gradual shrinkage of the so-called young labor force if we define that from roughly 20-30 years old. That’s a fact because that generation has been born, and we will see a gradual decline. But, at the same time, the old generation will grow.” And according to Yang Jinrui, the deputy director of China’s National Health Commission’s population surveillance and family development department, the window for reaping demographic dividends is about to close. 

北卡罗莱纳大学社会学助理教授蔡永在采访中曾说：“如果我们将年轻劳动力定义为20至30岁之间的年轻人，那我们将看到这种年轻劳动力的逐渐减少。这是事实，因为这一代人已经出生了，我们也将看到这个下降趋势。同时，老年人数会增长。” 中国国家卫健委人口监测与家庭发展司副司长杨金瑞表示，收获人口红利的窗口正在关闭。

The question is what should the government do?

问题是：政府应该如何做？

Ms. Li, stay-at-home mom told us that “I think that housing, especially to control the high housing prices in cities such as Beijing, is important, as well as increasing the income of young people. Couldn’t their income be increased? Changing (the situation) would be a very realistic problem.” And that improving economic status is a very realistic question.

全职妈妈李女士告诉我们：“我觉得在（北）京就是住房、房价的这些管控 ，还有就是年轻人收入方面，我觉得都要提高。你不提高这个经济的话，这怎么去（改变）就是很现实的问题。”如何提升经济状况是个非常现实的问题。

Media professional Mr. Li believes it’s about strengthening the supportive measures. “For example, China has a very good policy, the special individual income tax deductions. I think more items could be added to the tax-deductible categories. This could alleviate the financial pressure that every family is facing right now, such as the upbringing of children, the cost of food and clothing, education and so on,” he said.

媒体人李先生认为配套措施的加强应该成为重心。他说：“比如说，现在国家有一个很好的政策叫个税专项扣除，我觉得在个税专项扣除里可以再增添更多的项目，以缓解每个家庭现在面临（的问题），比如说孩子养育问题的经济压力，吃穿用度方面的经济压力，教育方面的经济压力等。”

Ms. Kong, a university student, said it’s about equality between men and women. She said: “It’s really about a balance between men and women. If men are given paternity leave, I think more women would be more inclined to have more babies. It could be.”

大学生孔同学觉得这是一个男女平权的问题。她说：“我觉得男性也休的话，双方都可以得到比较好的平衡。这样的话女性可能也就会比较愿意再要更多的孩子吧。”

Ms. Li, the human resource officer, looks at the issue from the employment of women. She believes that, if more “safeguards” are provided, then female employees would feel safer. “Because workplace competition is pretty intense right now, especially if the female employee gives birth to a second or third child, her career path might be affected. So I think there are areas between employers and employees and job security that need to be strengthened,” she said.

从事人力资源工作的李女士是从女员工就业的角度来看这个问题的。她认为，如果能给更多“保障性”的政策，女员工可能更有安全感。她说：“因为现在职场竞争挺厉害的，特别是生二胎或者三胎回来之后，她的工作可能会受到一些影响。我觉得在这个劳动保障或者说在雇主跟员工之间的这方面可能有需要加强的地方。”

We posed questions to Dr. Justine Coulson, UNFPA Representative in China. From her position at the United Nations, how’s she viewing China’s government’s performance on this issue so far? And what more does she expect the government should do?

我们也就这个问题采访了联合国人口基金驻华代表康嘉婷博士。作为联合国的官员，她是如何评价评价中国政府迄今在这个问题上的表现？她认为政府在这方面还应该做些什么？

Dr. Coulson told us that the interesting thing about China is that the total fertility rate is about 1.3. But looking at it differently, if we look at how many children would people like to have, that number is about 1.8. This gap between the two numbers is what needs to be kept in mind when making policy decisions. “Are they adequate to really shift from that 1.3, the reality now, to that 1.8 in terms of enabling couples to really fulfill their fertility desires? So what we know globally is that it's important to have a package of different investments rather than just focusing on one particular element of support,” she said.

康嘉婷博士告诉我们，中国一个值得关注的点在于中国的总生育率是1.3。但如果换一个角度来看，如果问的是人们想要多少个孩子，那么实际上这个数字是1.8。她说：“基于这个差距，政府制定新政策和注入新投资时我们需要考虑的是：它们是否可以满足夫妻想生育的愿望，让现在的1.3变成1.8呢？我们在全球范围内看到的是，对多方面进行一揽子投资比只对一个方面进行投资更加重要。”

But Dr. Coulson also believes that we have to be realistic about this. “So when we look at countries that are looked at their current low fertility and they've come up with a range of policies and packages to try and support couples to have more children, the trend we tend to see is … you will see a sudden bump or increase in fertility. But that won't get sustained,” she said. Looking at the global landscape, she said that there hasn’t countries that have introduced policies or interventions that’s taking the country back to the old days of replacement fertility at 2.1 or even 2.4. “So, we do need to be realistic about this,” she said.

但康嘉婷博士也认为，我们必须要现实地面对这个问题。她告诉我们：“当我们看生育率低的那些国家提出了一系列政策和计划来支持夫妻生育更多孩子，我们看到的是当这些政策到位时，你会看到生育率突然上升。但是这个趋势难以持续下去。”从全球的角度来看，她没有看到任何国家可以通过自身的政策和干预措施让生育率回到2.1或者2.4。因此，她认为我们需要很现实地来看待这个问题。

Being realistic means we have to ask a very realistic question: Is this going to hurt the economy? If it is hard to get back to the previous birth rate, we may have to work with the birth rate we could achieve.

现实地看这个问题就意味着我们要问一个很现实的问题：这会伤害经济吗？如果回到以前的生育率很困难，我们可能需要在我们能达到的生育率的基础上来制定政策。

I asked Dr. Coulson the question. What she told me is that we may have to think about this in a different way. She said that by 2050, 50% of the Chinese population will still be productive labor force. It is still a large pool of people. But, the way of “working” might be changing considerably. So the size of the new labor force might not be necessarily as important as its quality of it.

我问了康嘉婷博士这个问题。她告诉我的是，我们可能需要换一种思考方式。她说，到2050年，中国50%的人口仍是有效的劳动力。这个群体仍然数量庞大。但是，“工作”的方式可能会发生翻天覆地的变化。所以劳动力的数量可能没有劳动力的质量重要。

“if you went into a car production plant anywhere in the world in 1970, and you walk into a car production plant today, the way cars are made have been completely revolutionized. In 1970, you would see a plant full of working men, mainly men, building cars in this very labor-intensive way. Today you walk into a car production plant and we see robots doing most of the work,” Dr. Coulson said.

康嘉婷博士说：“如果你在1970年走进世界上任何一家汽车生产工厂，对比你今天走进一家汽车生产工厂，汽车的制造方式已经彻底改变了。上世纪70年代，你会看到一家工厂里挤满了工人，主要是男性工人，他们以这种劳动密集型的方式制造汽车。今天你走进一家汽车生产厂，你可以看到机器人完成大部分的工作。”

She believes that many labor-intensive jobs and roles we see today will be completely transformed over the next 20 to 30 years. So, having a large labor force may not be as important as having a well-educated, productive labor force. 

康嘉婷博士认为，我们将看到许多劳动密集型的工作和职业在未来的20年到30年里会彻底改变。所以，拥有大量劳动力可能不如拥有受过良好教育的生产性劳动力重要。

What we see through these conversations we’ve had is that the “conflict” is rather a pool of different interests. Each individual has his or her own demand, and each requires an individual solution. And while the nation is calling on to have more children and doing all it can to facilitate that, the policies have to be humanized. There needs to be more high-quality supportive policies and mechanisms to help the people choose.

通过这些对话我们可以看到，“冲突”其实是不同利益的集合。每个人都有他或者她的需求，每个人都需要单独的解决方案。虽然国家正在呼吁生育更多孩子，并尽其所能促进这一点，但政策必须要人性化。扶持政策和机制要保质保量，帮助群众做出选择。

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