中国式现代化与新时代社会福利制度的转型升级

Chinese Path to Modernization and the Transformation and Upgrading of Social Welfare System in the New Era

“中国式现代化”是党的二十大报告中提出的全面推进中华民族伟大复兴的方向指针,是实现我国未来社会福利制度转型升级的不竭动力。中国式现代化“五位一体”的概念内涵为我国社会福利制度的长期发展赋予了“本土性”“方向性”“引领性”“适度性”“共享性”五方面的时代要求,为我国在借鉴已有现代化国家普遍经验的基础上实现基于国情国力的道路选择奠定了坚实基础。实践中,我国遵循“小福利”特征的社会福利制度不但是特定时代的合理产物,也带有典型的历史局限性,其突出问题表现为既有制度所造成的“家庭照顾赤字”。在未来转型升级过程中,我国社会福利制度应当紧密结合中国式现代化的战略部署,以夯实家庭照顾能力为目标、以稳定公共部门福利供应为抓手、以优化社会保障内部结构为基础、以增强基层民政服务能力为重点、以构建自主知识体系为支撑,多措并举推进中国社会福利事业的完善。

“Chinese path to modernization”,proposed in the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,is not only the direction of comprehensively promoting the great rejuvenation of China,but also an inexhaustible driving force for the transformation and upgrading of China’s future social welfare system.“Chinese path to modernization”is the process of modernization based on“huge population size”as the governance basis,“common prosperity for all people”as the value goal,“harmony between material and spiritual civilization”as the stability premise,“harmonious development between people and nature”as the material condition,and“taking the path of peaceful development”as the realization path.The concept of the“Chinese path to modernization”endows the long-term development of China’s social welfare system with the requirements of“localization”,“directionality”,“guidance”,“moderation”and“sharing”,laying a solid foundation for China to implement correct policies based on learning from the common experience of existing modern countries.In practice,China’s social welfare system,which follows the“residual”and“selective”characteristics,is a reasonable result of a specific era.Specifically,existing social welfare system in China originated from comprehensive factors such as the weak economic foundation,concerns about high reform costs,enormous anti-poverty pressure,and good family upbringing structure in the early 1980s,and it once played an important historical role at that time.However,this system also has typical historical limitations.The prominent issue is that the existing system has exacerbated the“family care deficit”.Since 2000,changes in family structure such as“aging”,“miniaturization”,“empty nest”,the continuous growth of family care costs,as well as the increase in the proportion of family dysfunction,are the underlying causes of this problem.The“deficit”between the existing social welfare system and family care ability has laid multiple hidden dangers for promoting socio-economic development in the process of“Chinese path to modernization”.Not only is the huge population likely to continue to increase the burden of people’s upbringing,but also the“deficit of family care”may make it more difficult to achieve common prosperity,obtain livelihood benefits,transform economic dividends and promote China’s good experience to the world.In the process of future transformation and upgrading,China’s social welfare system should closely combine with the strategic deployment of“Chinese path to modernization”,take multiple measures to promote the improvement of China’s social welfare undertakings to strengthen family care ability,stabilize the welfare supply of the public sector,optimize the internal structure of social security,strengthen the capacity of grass-roots civil affairs services,and build an independent knowledge framework.