生育政策、生育率与家庭养老

Population Policy, Fertility and Family Supporting

近年来中国正加速进入老龄化社会,生育率下降、社会劳动供给不足和家庭养老压力增加的问题受到政府部门和学术界的广泛关注。本文在内生化生育率的模型中引入隔代抚养和老年赡养来分析隔代抚养在老龄化社会中的作用,同时讨论生育补贴政策和社会养老政策对生育率和家庭养老的影响。研究发现:①隔代抚养对生育率和人力资本提升有一定作用,更为重要地,隔代抚养能够增加社会总劳动供给,可以缓解人口老龄化;但是在人口老龄化严重的情况下,隔代抚养只能在一定程度上减缓但无法根本扭转生育率下降的趋势。②生育补贴政策可以有效提高生育率和人力资本水平,但对社会总劳动供给的作用不确定;在人口老龄化严重的情况下,隔代抚养和生育补贴政策可以有效解决生育率低下和劳动供给不足的问题,但会增加家庭养老压力。③社会养老政策可以有效降低家庭养老压力;在人口老龄化社会,鼓励隔代抚养、实施生育补贴政策和社会养老政策可以增加劳动供给、提高生育率,并减轻家庭养老压力。本文认为,重视中国传统家庭文化,如隔代抚养的作用,对于改善人口结构具有重要的现实意义;单一的政策难以有效解决人口老龄化的问题,要想提高生育率,增加劳动供给并降低家庭养老压力,需要结合中国家庭现实并实行一系列相关政策。本文的研究启示在于,加快完善托育服务,包括鼓励隔代抚养和发展正式的育儿照料市场,同时降低生育直接成本,并制定合理的生育补贴政策以及完善社会养老政策,以帮助中国积极应对人口老龄化。

In recent years,China has accelerated into an aging society.Both policymakers and the academia are worried about the decline in fertility,the insufficiency in total labor supply,and the increase in the pressure on family supporting.This paper introduces skip-generation raising and family supporting into a three-period overlapping-generations model with endogenous fertility.Based on this model,this paper analyzes the role of skipgeneration raising in the aging society and the impacts of child allowance policy and social security policy on fertility and family supporting.Our theoretical results show that skip-generation raising increases fertility and human capital to some extent;more importantly,skip-generation raising greatly increases total labor supply,slowing down the process of population aging.As population aging advances,skip-generation raising only has the limited positive effect on fertility and fails to reverse the declining trend in fertility.Child allowance policy has significantly positive effects on fertility and human capital,but its effect on total labor supply is uncertain.When population aging is severe,skip-generation raising and child allowance policy can effectively promote fertility and total labor supply,but increases the burden on family supporting.Social security policy can effectively ease the burden on family supporting.In an aging society,encouraging skip-generation raising,and implementing child allowance policy and social security policy can effectively increase total labor supply and fertility,and ease the pressure on family supporting.Our results reveal that it is of great practical significance to attach importance to China’s traditional family culture such as skip-generation raising to improve the population structure.It is difficult for a single policy to effectively solve the problem of population aging.To increase fertility and total labor supply,and reduce family pressure,the government needs to implement a set of related policies,based on the reality in China.Our results suggest that to help China cope with population aging,relevant departments should speed up the improvement on childcare services—including encouraging skip-generation raising and developing formal childcare market,reduce the direct cost of childbirth,formulate reasonable child allowance policy,and perfect social pension policy.