Author: James Liang, HUANG Wen – zheng, title figure from: Vision China
Not long ago, the report that “Yunfu police super-life was dismissed” sparked heated discussions. Xue Ruiquan, a policeman involved in the case, was the deputy commander of the National Insurance Detachment of the Public Security Bureau of Yunfu City, Guangdong Province. He was dismissed by the unit because of the problem of “super-life”. His wife Xie Yuling was the teacher of the first primary school in Yunfu City, and also two children after the birth of the child. The month was expelled from the local education bureau. At the same time, Xue Ruiquan’s husband and wife are also facing penalties for paying more than 150,000 yuan in social support.
Xue Ruiquan and his ex-wife have a child, and after remarried with Xie Yuling, they have three children. Therefore, the “super-born” child is the fourth child for Xue Ruiquan and the third child for Xie Yuling. Xue Ruiquan’s first three children belong to the policy, and only the fourth child belongs to the so-called “policy outside birth”.
This incident has caused widespread concern and controversy after being reported by many media including CCTV. Some people think that the Xue Ruiquan couple’s super-life is indeed illegal, and the relevant departments have dealt with it correctly; others think that the couple are both expelled or dismissed, and the punishment is too heavy; others think that Xue Ruiquan and his wife have three or four children, which is indeed too much.
In our view, the Xue Ruiquan couple has three or four children and is beneficial to society. They are punished for their fertility behavior, not so much as their own mistakes. It is better to say that the concept of the family planning policy itself is unreasonable.
For more than 30 years, the family planning department has been levying so-called social support for so-called “super-born” families. The legal basis behind this is that raising “super-child” children requires more social resources, so “super-born” families need to give extra compensation to the society. But this reason is simply untenable.
First of all, where do social resources such as education and medical care come from? If they are paid for, then the user directly bears the cost and there is no need for additional compensation. If they are provided free of charge by the government, then the funds to build and maintain these public utilities come from taxes that workers contribute. Although the “super-born” child occupies more social resources during the period of parenting, he is still a laborer who creates taxes after growing up, and thus can contribute more social resources to the future.
We can further calculate the accounts and see the government’s input and output in raising children. For all governments in the world, investment in education is only a small part of the tax, and is generally much smaller than the government’s expenses for raising the elderly. In the United States, taxes account for 26% of GDP, education spending is only 5% of GDP, and pension spending exceeds 12% of GDP.
In general terms, GDP can be understood as the wealth created or enjoyed by society as a whole. If the wealth created or enjoyed by a person’s life is a unit, the above data shows that if a child is added, the government needs to invest 5% to educate him, but can get 26% of the tax, and finally 12% to support him, and the rest With 9% plus a fiscal deficit, you can invest in defense, research, infrastructure, and returning previous deficits.
Overall, the government or society receives more income from individuals than expenses. This conclusion is not surprising, because for society, people are not only a burden, but also a contributor. People are burdened before work, but after work, they are the creators of social wealth. After entering old age, they become burdens. But in general, people’s contribution to society is greater than the burden, which is also the world population. More and more, but the root cause of the overall improvement of the human race.
A family without children, although temporarily saving 5% of the education investment to the government, but after the husband and wife are old, they need the government to pay at least 10% of the old-age pension, and there is no new generation of tax revenue to share the government expenditure. In contrast, families with multiple children, although they need the government to invest in certain educational resources in the early years, will contribute much larger taxes in the future, for the government to raise the elderly of other families and improve the overall progress of society.
China’s current situation is roughly the same as that of the United States. Taxation accounts for nearly 20% of GDP, while education investment is only 4% of GDP. Because China’s fertility rate has been significantly lower than the replacement level for a long time, the proportion of workers in the total population will drop sharply in the future, and the proportion of the elderly in the total population will rise sharply. China’s future spending on raising the elderly will be much higher. At 10% of GDP, this will severely squeeze the country’s investment in defense, research and infrastructure. Therefore, restricting the birth of a child seems to save the current support costs, but it greatly reduces the power to promote the future progress of society. It is a short-sighted behavior of killing chickens and taking eggs.
The long-term family planning propaganda emphasizes that the population is a burden, leading many people to think that reducing the Chinese population is a good thing, and that reducing the population is conducive to increasing per capita GDP. In fact, for per capita GDP, the population is not only the denominator, but also the numerator, and the role of the molecule is more fundamental and longer-lasting. Therefore, other conditions remain unchanged, the population declines, and the impact on the numerator may be greater than the effect on the denominator, resulting in a decline in per capita GDP rather than an increase.
Family advocates believe that reducing population is conducive to increasing per capita resources. In fact, in the modern economy, the proportion of resources and resources is very low. Agriculture and mining account for less than 10% of developed countries and less than 20% in China. In the history of modern economy, no country has developed due to resource bottlenecks. On the contrary, the relatively scarce resources of East Asian countries are far faster than the resource-rich Latin American countries. In the longer term, the price of resources has been a long-term downward trend for more than 100 years. The price of human resources, especially high-quality human resources, is growing rapidly, and talent is a real scarce resource.
In particular, China’s current fertility rate is far below the replacement level. In demographics, the level of replacement refers to the fertility rate required to maintain the number of children equal to the parents. According to the male-female ratio and female survival rate in China, the replacement rate of China’s fertility rate is about 2.15, which means that each couple needs an average of 2.15 children to keep the number of children equal to their parents.
Because there are always some people who are not married or infertile, or only wish to have one or two children, a small number of children with a special number of children are essential to maintaining national reproduction. In a normal society, the fertility willingness of different families varies widely. Assume that the number of willing children is as follows: 6, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0, and all families can give birth as expected, then a total of 7 families will have 15 children, the fertility rate is 2.14, barely close to China The required level of replacement of 2.15.
Among these 15 children, 9 from three or six children, accounting for 3/5 of the total; only four children from two-child families; and only two children, only less than the total number of children 1/7. This also means that when children from three-child and three-child families are very common, the fertility rate is just at the replacement level. However, under the comprehensive two-child policy, the number of births in the above-mentioned families will be changed to 2, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, and 0, that is, 7 families will have a total of 10 children, and the fertility rate is only 1.43.
With respect to the replacement level of 2.15, the fertility rate of 1.43 also means a 33.5% reduction for each generation and a 56% reduction for every two generations. If the fertility rate is always at this level and the life expectancy is stable, then the total population will decay by half every 50 years. Unless the fertility rate can be raised to a replacement level, population decline will continue.
We have previously discussed (http://opinion.caixin.com/liangjianzhang_mjxx/) in many articles, whether from a resource environment From the perspective of urban construction, economic development, scientific and technological innovation, or civilized inheritance, the severely declining demographic trend will have no harm to China’s future, and it will be a bottom-up for the Chinese nation’s rejuvenation.
Severe ultra-low fertility rate will not only significantly reduce the number of future populations, but also reduce the quality of the population in an all-round way, thus causing a double blow to future human resources. In China, where fertility levels are so low and it is impossible to maintain an alternative level even when fully liberalized, the government should reward rather than punish families with more children. In other words, a truly reasonable social support should be a government subsidy for multiple sub-families, not a fine for them.
Fundamentally, the tax contribution of many children born in the future will be far greater than the educational resources they occupy and will be used to raise the elderly in society as a whole. If someone is worried that this kind of reward will allow parents to focus on the number of births and ignore the quality, then the social support award can be linked to the child’s future contribution. For example, part of the child’s tax payment can be transferred to the parental pension. Parents who raise many high-income children will receive higher pension income.
In fact, almost all countries with fertility below the replacement level are adopting preferential policies that reward fertility. For example, France encourages fertility encouragement for a long time. The French tax law stipulates that the third and subsequent child allowances are equivalent to the sum of the first two children, and the purpose is to encourage families to have three or more children. For families with eight children, the French government will issue the Republic Family Gold Medal. Even so, France’s fertility rate is still below the level of substitution, although their fertility willingness and actual fertility rate are much higher than China’s.
The previous analysis shows that family giving birth to children is more profitable than spending for the government and society. In turn, giving birth to a child is more likely to be a “losing business” in the economic sense. Under the traditional family pension, parents are both the payers of raising children and the beneficiaries of the children’s support in the future. Parenting is the internal economic motivation for giving birth to children. However, under the social pension, parents are only the recipients of raising children, but the child will support the entire pension system in the future, and the beneficiaries are the whole society.
The cost of raising children is getting higher and higher. Some people estimate that the cost of raising a child in a Chinese city is several hundred thousand yuan.In the future, children are not expected to support the raising of their parents economically. Therefore, from the economic point of view, raising children is a high-investment and low-return behavior, which is one of the important reasons for the general decline in fertility willingness.
The current ultra-low fertility rate continues, and the entire pension system will not be able to make ends meet. If this is the case, the Chinese nation may face the threat of extinction. Therefore, to alleviate the problem of low fertility, economic incentives are needed to offset the side effects of fertility socialization.
The Chinese nation is the largest nation in the world. The huge population base is the most precious legacy left by our ancestors, and it is also the foundation for maintaining the relative independence of Chinese civilization and realizing national rejuvenation. Advocating fertility is the commonality of all the major ethnic groups that have survived. No matter how superior the technology is, no matter how advanced the culture is, any long-term contempt for fertility will eventually lead to decline. For example, Christianity and Buddhism strictly prohibit abortion, and the totems and rituals of reproductive worship are widely present in various cultures. Almost all ethnic groups in different eras will regard life and education as the embodiment of responsibilities and glory. However, severe restrictions on birth policy are destroying this foundation.
For decades, Chinese society has generally regarded the traits of ignorance and backwardness that are essential to the normal reproduction of the nation as a foolish and backward performance, and they have peace of mind for the harsh punishments they have suffered; until now, the family planning department is still in the third Child support for four-child families is mandatory. It is very difficult to raise children in modern society. The various restrictions are to severely punish those families who have made greater responsibilities for the sustainable development of society.
It can be said that the Chinese society owes all the “super-born” families as a whole. Strict punishment of families with three children and four children not only increased the cost of raising children, increased administrative costs and created various resentments, but also further curbed the already depressed desire to breed and aggravated the population crisis.
As analyzed earlier, a large number of couples need to have three or four children, and the deficits caused by those who have one or no children can be compensated for, and the nation is likely to continue. For example, a deficit caused by a childless family needs to be compensated by a four-child family. A deficit caused by a one-child family needs to be compensated by a three-child family. At present, the reality in China is that the number of children without children is far more than that of four-child families. The number of one-child families is far more than that of three-child families. Therefore, in order to maintain the sustainable development of Chinese society and the normal reproduction of the Chinese nation, we need a large number of families of three children, four children and even more children, which are beneficial to society.
Author: James Liang, HUANG Wen – zheng