Demographic changes
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Policymakers face an urgent task, and that is, investing more public funds into building a smart social welfare network that is able to meet head on the challenges underlying demographic changes across the nation.
For instance, exigent measures are badly needed to secure spots for all newborn babies at kindergartens in the coming years. The ongoing mini baby boom has seemingly made policymakers too ill prepared for predictable changes in the demographic mix.
It has been reported that Beijing is trying to build 120 new government-funded kindergartens that will cater to nearly 40,000 children over the next three years.
As of now, only about 200,000 kindergarten spots are available, and it is obvious that a fair number of the 400,000-plus children enrolling in kindergartens during this period will suffer from the city's insufficient public expenditure on pre-school education.
The problem is not limited to Beijing. It has been estimated that the total number of babies born in China increased by about 20 million annually over the past four years. But, the country's nearly 140,000 officially recognized kindergartens can only enroll around 26 million children, less than half the number of children in that age group in urban areas.
This lack of preparedness clearly shows that the country's fiscal policies must be realigned in favor of public welfare spending, in line with the nation's demographic changes.
Efforts to expand kindergarten enrollments are but a small step to deal with the mini baby boom; the long-term demographic shift, however, requires far-sighted policy responses.
