A nurse works at a maternal and child health care hospital in Huai'an City, east China's Jiangsu Province, May 12, 2024. Sunday marked the 113th International Nurses Day. Photo: Xinhua

China will improve the population development strategy in response to population aging and the declining birth rate, according to a resolution of Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization released by the Xinhua News Agency on Sunday. 

According to Xinhua, the 20th Central Committee of the CPC adopted a resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization at its third plenary session held from July 15-18. 

A sound system will be instituted to provide full life-cycle population services to all in order to promote high-quality population development. China will refine the policy system and incentive mechanisms for boosting the birth rate and strive to build a childbirth-friendly society, according to Xinhua. 

China will work to bring down the costs of childbirth, parenting, and education, refine parental leave policies, introduce a system of childbirth subsidies, improve basic public services for childbirth and pediatric medical care, and further raise the childcare-related deduction for personal income tax. 

China will make greater efforts to develop a public-benefit childcare service system and provide support for employer-run nurseries, community childcare facilities, and home-based childcare. Based on the general patterns underlying population flows, China will see that public services follow the movement of populations and facilitate the reasonable concentration of people in and their orderly flow between urban and rural areas and different regions. 

To actively respond to population aging, China will refine the policies and mechanisms for developing elderly care programs and industries. China will also develop the silver economy and support the creation of diverse jobs tailored to elderly people, according to Xinhua. 

In line with the principle of voluntary participation with appropriate flexibility, China will advance reform to gradually raise the statutory retirement age in a prudent and orderly manner. To boost the supply of basic elderly care services, China will develop community-based facilities, improve the operation mechanisms for public-run institutions, encourage and guide the participation of enterprises and other non-governmental actors in service provision, and promote mutual-aid elderly care and the integration of medical care and elderly care. 

China will work faster to shore up weaknesses in rural elderly care services. China will also see to it that better services are provided for elderly people with special difficulties including those who live alone, have disabilities, or suffer from physical impairment, and accelerate the introduction of insurance schemes for long-term care. 

China has the largest elderly population because it has long been the world's most populous country, and the rate of transition from an ageing society to a moderately ageing society is one of the fastest among all ageing countries in the world, Yuan Xin, deputy head of the China Population Association and a demographer from Nankai University in Tianjin, told the Global Times. 

China is facing increasingly complex challenges in elderly care, resulting from the overlapping trends of aging, longevity, and advanced aging, Yuan added. Aging implies a continuously expanding elderly population, leading to an increased number of individuals requiring care.

Longevity signifies an increase in life expectancy, extending the post-retirement period and prolonging the duration of elderly care. Advanced aging refers to the growing number of elderly individuals, typically aged 80 and above, who exhibit a higher dependency on societal services. 

It is crucial to respond to ageing and establish a system of birth support policies, because the mortality rate is relatively stable in the trend of population development, while longer life expectancy is the inevitable result of scientific and technological progress, improved medical care and better living conditions, Yuan said.

Yuan added that the main factors affecting population change are fertility and mortality, and the direction and trend of China's future population dynamics will be determined mainly by fertility rates. A higher fertility rate will slow down negative population growth and thus ease the degree of aging. Conversely, a lower fertility rate will accelerate negative population growth and the aging process.