Opinion: Active strategy can help solve population issue

As the home province of Confucius and Mencius, Shandong is steeped in Chinese culture. It is also, as some media outlets say, a leading province when it comes to the number of newborns.

Shandong's newborn population reached 1.77 million in 2016, up 42.7 percent year-on-year. And the number of couples who had a second child in 2016 added up to 1.12 million, up 69.9 percent year-on-year. In 2017, the birth rate in Shandong (excluding the migrant population) was among the highest in China, and the number of couples who had a second child accounted for 13 percent of the total in China.

However, despite the increase in the newborn population in Shandong in 2016 and 2017, some media reports say the number of new births in the province will decline in 2018 compared with 2017.

The reports say, last year, the newborn population in several prefecture-level cities of Shandong declined. Several big cities with populations of more than 5 million, including Qingdao, Yantai, Liaocheng and Dezhou, showed a declining trend in newborn population. For instance, in Qingdao, the number of newborns between January and November declined 21.1 percent year-on-year. And in Liaocheng, the newborn population was a little more than 60,000 from January to November, reflecting a declining trend compared with 2016 and 2017.

The reason for the decline in the birth rate in Shandong is the same as that in other Chinese provinces and regions: high cost of raising a child and high housing prices. The cost of education and time, possible compromise in career, likely loss of career opportunities, and restrictions on parents' movement are some of the costs many post-1990s couples do not want or cannot afford to bear. So they decide to either have just one child or no children at all.

It is estimated that in urban areas the monetary cost of raising a child until he or she graduates from college is at least 500,000 yuan ($73,971), which many ordinary families cannot afford to pay.

Working and living in big cities is so difficult for migrant workers that many of them don't even think of having a child. In 2017 the net population outflow from Shandong province, for example, was 420,000. According to the 2018 China Migrant Population Development Report, issued by the National Health Commission recently, Shandong contributes to 17.39 percent of the migrant population in the Tianjin-Beijing-Hebei region, second only to Henan province.

Besides, like other provinces, the childbearing age of women in Shandong, too, has declined, leading to a drop in the newborn population.

The possible fall in Shandong's newborn population suggests China faces a shrinking population problem. After the policy allowing all couples to have two children was implemented, the number of newly born second children increased in the short term. But the trend didn't last long. Given the challenges they face in their day-to-day life and the high cost of raising a child, many Chinese couples don't want to have a second child, which is a radical change in the country's childbirth culture.

The number of new births may gradually decline in the future, possibly leading to negative population growth. Many Chinese and international experts say the turning point in China's population－when population growth enters negative territory－may appear between 2018 and 2027.

The authorities should be really worried about the drastic decline of young population, which drives creativity and productivity, because it could lead to a drastic change in the population structure and harm China's social ecology. Before we reach the turning point in population growth, China should devise a national strategy to tackle a possible population crisis in the future. And the authorities could start the process by building a social system that encourages childbirth, and developing a child-and family-friendly social environment.

The author is a professor at the Institute of Population Research, Peking University.