途中负担:理解农村生育率下降的一个视角

The Burden of the Home⁃school Journey in the Perspective of Understanding the Decline of the Rural Fertility Rate

持续的撤点并校让越来越多的农村低龄学童只能到城镇读书,这打破了过去“村校一体”的教育空间结构,不仅造成了农村儿童上下学空间距离的增加,更重要的是让上下学途中的物理空间转移到了村庄熟人社会的监管之外,导致了“空间脱管”。为此,过去由村庄社会承担的部分儿童照护成本现在只能由家庭全部承担。而无论农民家庭采用何种应对方式,都会增加新的经济成本、时间成本和心理成本等,这就构成了农民家庭的“途中负担”。“途中负担”是农民家庭教育负担的一种表现,它的出现迫使农民家庭从家庭理性角度出发而主动选择降低生育率。这就构成了“撤点并校—进城读书—负担增加(途中负担)—生育降低”的内在机理。面对“途中负担”不断扩大的趋势,可以通过发展乡镇学校和城镇公益照料、推广学校寄宿等方式来适当降低“途中负担”,提高农民家庭的生育能力。

The continuous canceling school and school mergers have made more and more young rural children go to study in cit⁃ies or towns,which has broken the spatial structure of the past“village⁃school integration”educational model,not only resulting in an increase in the spatial distance between the rural children's home and their school,but also more importantly leading to a kind of“spatial neglect”,that is,the students'physical space for schooling is no longer in the supervision of the village⁃based acquaintance society.As a result,part of the child⁃care cost,which used to be borne by the village society,is now fully borne by the farmer families.And no matter what kind of coping methods the farmer families adopt,it will increase new economic costs,time costs and psychological costs,which constitutes the“burden of the home⁃school journey”of the farmer families.The“burden of the home⁃school journey”is a manifestation of the educational burden of the farmer families,which forces them to take the initiative to reduce their fertility rate due to their rational consideration of the family.This constitutes the internal mech⁃anism of“canceling school and school mergers⁃entering the city to study⁃increasing the burden(burden of the home⁃school jour⁃ney)⁃reducing the fertility rate”.In the face of the on⁃going wave of the“burden of the home⁃school journey”,we should properly reduce the“burden of the home⁃school journey”and improve the fertility rate of farmer families by developing township schools,providing more urban public welfare and promoting school boarding.