迈向“儿童投资型国家”:我国低生育率的福利逻辑及儿童福利制度的转型升级

Moving towards a“Child Investment-oriented Country”:The Welfare Logic of Low Fertility and the Transformation of Child Welfare System in China

人口问题既是大国兴衰之根本,也是关乎民族兴旺发达与国家长治久安的关键。近年来,伴随着生育率的连年下降,我国在2022年正式迎来人口负增长,低生育率已影响到国家经济社会良性发展,因此党的二十大报告明确提出要“建立生育支持政策体系”。已有的学理研究从五个层面对低生育率的形成原因进行了丰富讨论,但很少深入洞悉这场危机背后的深层福利逻辑,使得生育支持政策难以融入现行社会保障改革中。本研究认为,我国低生育率既与我国社会保障体系的结构性失衡及对全球社会保障转型共识的忽视密切关联,也与当前儿童福利对象的瞄准失序和儿童福利服务的落地能力不足有关。研究建议,我国在下一阶段应当积极实现从“促生”到“辅育”的全面转向,以“儿童投资型国家”为方向来强化以公民资格为识别标准的儿童福利制度,通过夯实家庭育儿能力及基层民政服务能力来避免“低生育率陷阱”。

The population issue is not only the root of the rise and fall of a large country,but also the key to the prosperity of the nation and the long-term stability of the country.In recent years,with the continuous decline of the fertility rate,China officially entered the stage of negative population growth in 2022.The low fertility risk has increasingly become a shackle that seriously threatens the sound development of the country’s economy and society.Therefore,the report of the 20 th National Congress of the CPC clearly proposes to“establish the fertility support policy system”.Existing academic studies have discussed the causes of low fertility from five perspectives,but few have been able to deconstruct the deep welfare logic behind the crisis,which makes it difficult to integrate the fertility support policy into the current social security reform.From the perspective of welfare construction,this study believes that China’s low fertility risk is not only due to the unreasonable social security structure in China and the neglect of the consensus on the transformation of global social welfare,but also due to the targeting bias of China’s current social welfare system and the implementation efficiency of social welfare services.The study suggests that,in the next stage,China should actively achieve a comprehensive shift from“promoting fertility”to“assisting in childcare”,take a“child investment-oriented country”as the direction,strengthen the child welfare system with citizenship as the identification standard,and avoid the“low fertility trap”by consolidating family parenting skills and grassroots civil service capabilities.