Wang Zhenjie: Quickly unleash the talent dividend advantage and potential economy | population | potential
Currently, China's population structure is showing a new normal of urban-rural and regional population growth and decline differentiation. We must have a comprehensive understanding and a correct view of the new trends, new features, and new models of high-quality population development in China, and lead high-quality population development to help economic and social development.
There is a close relationship between population growth and economic development, which can promote each other or form a mutually restrictive situation. The first meeting of the 20th Central Committee of Finance and Economics further proposed to focus on the strategic arrangement of building a strong country and national rejuvenation, and improve the population development strategy in the new era. Therefore, we must comprehensively understand and correctly view the new trends, new features, and new models of high-quality population development in China, and lead high-quality population development to assist economic and social development.
Currently, China's population structure has entered a crossroads of negative population growth and deepening aging, and is showing a new normal of urban-rural and regional population growth and decline differentiation. This series of changes is a common phenomenon faced by countries around the world after reaching a certain stage of industrialization and urbanization, and is a product of the interweaving and linkage of population and economy. The proposal of high-quality population development is a major theoretical innovation of the Party Central Committee in grasping the new laws and trends of population development in China, starting from the practice of population development work and re understanding the new practice. It is an inevitable choice for the new normal of population development in the new era. High quality population development needs to be based on the basic situation of China's population size, structure, spatial distribution, and population quality in the new era, actively adapt to and lead the new normal of population development, further optimize the population development strategy, establish and improve the birth support policy system, promote the construction of a fertility friendly society, promote long-term balanced population development, and maximize the role of population in economic and social development.
The negative population growth in our country is mainly caused by a decrease in fertility rate and birth quantity, accompanied by an intensification of aging and an increase in population mortality rate. However, China's demographic dividend advantage is still evident, with nearly 900 million laborers and an annual increase of over 15 million. Rich human resources remain a prominent advantage. The continuous increase in labor resources in our country has brought about significant productivity improvements and economic growth effects. The combined advantages of population size, structural dividends, and quality capital will continue to play a role in promoting economic development and social progress, laying a solid foundation for building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and achieving common prosperity for all people.
National development relies on talent, and national rejuvenation relies on talent. The demographic dividend is not the only driving force for economic and social development. As the advantage of the demographic dividend gradually weakens, a slowdown in economic growth will inevitably occur. To overcome the negative impact of the weakening population dividend on economic development, it is necessary to promote the transformation of population dividend into talent dividend as soon as possible, and accelerate the establishment of competitive advantages in talent resources. At present, the population receiving higher education in China has exceeded 240 million, and the average number of years of education for new labor force has reached 14 years. The total number of skilled workers exceeds 200 million, and the number of highly skilled talents exceeds 60 million. The talent dividend in our country is forming and its importance in future economic and social development will become increasingly prominent. To comprehensively improve the development level of higher education, vigorously develop modern vocational education, continuously improve the scientific and cultural quality, health quality, ideological and moral quality of the population, build a new type of labor force, shape a modern talent dividend resource with abundant total talent, optimized structure, and reasonable regional distribution, and help China's sustained economic development.
The data shows that the average life expectancy in China is 78.2 years, and the health literacy level of residents reaches 25.4%. The main health indicators are among the top in middle-income countries, bringing a demographic health dividend to over 1.4 billion people in China. According to relevant departments, it is expected that during the 14th Five Year Plan period, the total number of elderly people aged 60 and above will exceed 300 million, accounting for more than 20%, entering a stage of moderate aging. Around 2035, the population aged 60 and above will exceed 400 million, accounting for over 30%, entering a stage of severe aging. The health dividend of China's population will also lay a solid foundation for the vigorous development of the silver economy: the scale of industries related to the silver economy has exceeded 5 trillion yuan, but all types of industries are in their early stages and have not fully unleashed their potential. There is huge potential for future development. In the future, the development of this economic model needs to be adjusted with the changing consumption concepts and needs of the elderly. We need to focus on the pain points and difficulties of the overall shortage of high-quality products and services in the silver haired economy, the small scale of business entities, and the relatively weak ability of product development and independent innovation. Multiple measures should be taken simultaneously to continuously expand the elderly consumption market, so that the combination of population health dividends and the potential of the silver haired economy can become a new growth point for China's future economy.