Liaoning Provincial Development and Reform Commission's response to "curbing the continuous decline of population": prioritizing the improvement of population quality Response | Scale | Population

According to the website of the Liaoning Provincial Development and Reform Commission on August 18th, the Commission recently responded to the suggestions of the Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on curbing the continuous decline in population in our province, stating that maintaining population size will be an urgent task and improving population quality will be given top priority.

The Liaoning Provincial Development and Reform Commission stated in its response that we fully agree with and fully absorb the suggestions put forward by the Provincial Committee of Civil Construction. The population development in Liaoning Province is characterized by a trend of fewer children, aging, and a continuous decline in the permanent population. The situation and challenges it faces are very severe. In response to the negative population growth phenomenon in Liaoning Province, the urgent task is to scientifically formulate a population development strategy, promote high-quality economic and social development, coordinate industrial development, improve the childcare and elderly care service system, improve active childbirth policies, improve living environment, and promote coordinated development in various aspects.

Regarding the current population situation and issues in the province, the Liaoning Provincial Development and Reform Commission stated that the population in Liaoning Province continues to experience negative growth. In 2022, the permanent population of Liaoning Province was 41.97 million, a decrease of 324000 compared to 2021, with an average annual growth rate of -4.31%. The birth population is 172000, with a birth rate of only 4.08 ‰, which is 2.69 percentage points lower than the national average. The natural population growth rate is -4.96 ‰, which is 4.36 percentage points lower than the national average.

The regional population growth in Liaoning Province is uneven. There are significant differences in the trend of permanent population changes in various regions of Liaoning Province. Compared with the sixth national population census in 2010, only Shenyang and Dalian have maintained sustained population growth, but the growth rate has been slowing down. The proportion of population in these two cities to the total population of the province is 38.7%, while other cities have shown varying degrees of negative growth.

The Liaoning Provincial Development and Reform Commission stated that the aging population in Liaoning Province is a serious problem. The population aged 60 and above in the province is 11.58 million, accounting for 27.6% of the total population and 7 percentage points higher than the national average; There are 7.419 million elderly people aged 65 and above, accounting for 17.4% of the total population in the province, which is 3.9 percentage points higher than the national average. The degree of aging ranks first in the country.

In addition, the proportion of labor force in Liaoning Province is continuously decreasing. The scale and proportion of the working age population in the province are continuously decreasing, and the advantage of labor resources is constantly weakening. The working age population aged 15-59 in 2020 was 27.69 million, a decrease of 2.56 million compared to 2015, with an average annual decrease of 1.8%. The proportion decreased from 69% in 2015 to 63.5%, indicating a continuous decline in the working age population.

Regarding the next step of work arrangement, the Liaoning Provincial Development and Reform Commission suggests focusing on the following areas of work:

Making maintaining population size a crucial task. Liaoning, as a region with strict implementation of family planning policies in history, has deeply rooted the concept of having fewer and better children. The public's concept of childbirth has not yet kept up with the changes in childbirth policies. Therefore, it is necessary to vigorously promote positive childbirth policies in public places and mass media, create a friendly atmosphere for childbirth, implement a maternity leave system, protect the legitimate rights and interests of female employees, and guide eligible women to have children. At the same time, reducing the cost of reproductive and parenting education, raising funds through multiple channels, and building good service facilities. Promote the implementation of various support policies for childbirth, and provide greater reduction and exemption policy support to families with two or three children.

At the same time, improving the quality of the population is given top priority. One is to improve ideological and moral qualities as well as scientific and cultural qualities. Build a moral education mechanism that integrates schools, families, and society, strengthen family education and family conduct, implement civic morality construction projects, carry out the creation of new era civilization, focus on promoting rural civilization construction, and establish new social civilization trends. The second is to strengthen high-quality services throughout the entire process of childbirth. Implementing the maternal and child health guarantee project, each city and county has established one public standardized maternal and child health care institution, conducting free newborn disease screening and women's "two cancers" screening, promoting integrated management services before marriage, pregnancy, pregnancy, postpartum, and children, and comprehensively improving the level of maternal and child health service guarantee. The third is to deepen the construction of "Healthy Liaoning". Promote the high-quality development of public hospitals, build national and provincial-level regional medical centers, comprehensively improve treatment capabilities and levels, promote the expansion, sinking, and balanced layout of high-quality medical resources, significantly reduce the rate of difficult and severe cases being transferred to external hospitals, and continuously improve the health quality of the population.

In addition, promoting high-quality employment is an important means, and actively responding to population aging is put on an important agenda.