In order to save the low fertility rate, the government has promoted the countermeasures once morest child reduction since 2018, but the total fertility rate has dropped from 1.40 to 0.98 10 years ago, which is not rising but falling. The report of the Audit Department pointed out that the government invested a large amount of budget to deal with the countermeasures once morest young children, but did not incorporate issues such as delayed unmarried age, high working hours, and high housing prices into the countermeasures. Not even having children.
Since 2018, the Executive Yuan has promoted the child-childhood countermeasure plan. It is expected to invest a total of more than 485.1 billion yuan by 2024. The plan includes comprehensive care for 0 to 6 years old, family-friendly employment and workplace measures, children’s health rights and protection, and friendliness 4 major aspects such as fertility.
The report of the audit department pointed out that the countermeasures for the reduction of children have substantially reduced the financial burden of parenting for parents, but there is still a lack of empirical analysis on the specific attention to the increase in the number of children born to married people and the choice of marriage and childbirth for unmarried people. , parenting worries, economic and elderly support burdens reduce the willingness to marry and childbirth, and the strategy of promoting Chinese people’s marriage opportunities is still difficult to produce significant results.
The Youth Platform Foundation, a consortium, announced in March the “Survey on Chinese People’s Willingness to Marry and Childbirth”. More than 80% of the respondents agreed that “low salary and high housing prices” make people do not want to get married and do not want to have children. This is the most important factor to increase the willingness to marry and have children. .
The Audit Department pointed out that the government’s countermeasures once morest child-childhood did not integrate the government’s response to low wages and high housing prices into the overall consideration of the plan. It is suggested that the government should consult a special agency or invest resources for empirical analysis and research, so as to promote policy research and development. And implementation, in line with the people’s incentives for marriage and childbirth, in order to increase the total fertility.
This year coincides with the election year. As the polling day is approaching, the Executive Yuan has frequently released favorable policies recently, such as expanding the rent subsidy and raising the childcare allowance to 5,000 yuan per month for the first child, 6,000 yuan for the second child, and 5,000 yuan for the second child. More than 7,000 yuan for three children, etc. Su Zhenchang recently called out that there is no ceiling to expand the budget for infertility subsidies.
Kuomintang legislator Zeng Mingzong said that he supports the expansion of childcare allowances to encourage childbirth policies, but the timing of the introduction is not right, and it is impossible to think of spending a lot of money to take care of the people every election. The DPP’s usual tactic in power is to not do it normally, and to wait until the election to release the benefits. For example, in the 2018 local election, the government released regarding 500 billion in policy benefits, but the election was still a disastrous defeat. efficient.
Zhang Qilu, a legislator of the People’s Party, said that every election year, the government desperately increases the stake. This is the political cycle. The money is not spent on the knife edge. Throwing coins and tying stakes, in the end, you have to bear the consequences yourself.
