Supervisor(s): Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Sponsor(s): Institute of Population and Labor Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IPLE-CASS) CN：11-1043/C
Chinese Journal of Population Science, sponsored by Institute of Population and Labor Economics at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (IPLE-CASS), has published a large number of influential and high quality theory papers, reflects the latest academic research in the field of population and labor and interdisciplinary timely. It is a good way for people to understand the demographic development and provides theoretical information and countermeasures for the state and government decision-making departments. Chinese Journal of Population Science prefers research papers, reviews and surveys with high quality in the field of population and related fields. The contents include population theory and policy research, population statistics, population and economy, human resources and labor economy, social security research, population and society, international comparison of population, population and ecological environment, ethnic minority population and family planning theory and practice, etc.
With the extension of life expectancy, the national savings rate increases in some countries and regions and decreases in others, rising in some periods and falling in others. The savings rate is affected not only by the length of life, but also by the structure of life. Based on the data of the World Health Organization, this paper divided life expectancy into “unhealthy” life expectancy and healthy life expectancy; it observed the difference of savings rate in different health states from the perspective of population life expectancy structure, and made a new explanation for the rise and fall of savings rate in the process of population life expectancy extension. According to the data of the World Health Organization, the healthy life expectancy of Chinese population increased by 2.8 years from 2000 to 2010. Among them, the healthy life after the age of 60 is prolonged by 0.8 years, and the proportion of years of prolonged healthy life after the age of 60 is 28.6%. It can be seen that the focus of improving the health status of China’s population is shifting from the middle-aged population to the elderly population, which is the basic law of improving the health of the population, and at the same time promotes the trend change of the national savings rate. This paper has the following findings. (1) The length of “unhealthy” life expectancy has a negative impact on the national savings rate. That is, with the extension of “unhealthy” life expectancy, the national savings rate tends to decrease. (2) The impact of healthy life expectancy on the national savings rate lies not in its length, but in the characteristics of people involved in its extension. Specifically, the national savings rate does not depend on the years of healthy life expectancy, and the time when people are in a healthy state has no significant impact on the savings rate. The improvement of the health status of the young and middle-aged population is an important driving force for the growth of the savings rate. If the extension of the expected healthy life is mainly distributed in the young and middle-aged period, the national savings rate tends to rise. The improvement of the health status of the elderly population will weaken the motivation of savings. If the extension of the expected healthy life is mainly distributed in the old age, the national savings rate tends to decline. The inherent law of prolonging the healthy life of the population induces the trend change of the national savings rate. In fact, the extension of the healthy life expectancy of the population is often characterized by stages. Usually, the extension of healthy life begins with the middle-aged and young people. With the continuous improvement of the health status of the young and middle-aged population, the space for further growth of their healthy life expectancy becomes small, while the health status of the elderly population begins to improve and the healthy life expectancy gradually increases. This means that the improvement of population health will push the national savings rate of emerging economies to show an inverted U-shaped trend of rising first and then falling. Therefore, when formulating macroeconomic policies, it is necessary to fully consider the influence of the stage characteristics of population health change on the national savings rate. To a certain extent, the phenomenon of high savings in China is the result of the continuous improvement of the health status of the young and middle-aged population in China. In the future, the focus of improving the health status of China’s population will gradually shift from the middle-aged population to the elderly population, thus promoting the structural decline of China’s national savings rate. Combined with the relevant data provided by the World Health Organization, it can be further inferred that China’s national savings rate has began to decrease induced by the extension of life expectancy.
The migration of the old-age population is an important potential to promote the family mobility in the process of new urbanization in China. Whether the old-age drifters can realize citizenization along with the family mobility constitutes an important issue of urbanization policy. Based on the 2017 national health and family planning dynamic monitoring survey data of floating population, this paper screened out 1068 old-age drifters who moved with their children because of old-age care or caring for their younger generations, and analyzed the influence of family care behavior on the residence willingness of the old-age drifters by using Logistic regression model, as well as the possible impact on the current pension problem in China. The research findings are as follows. (1) Family care is still the mainstream model of the elderly's old-age care needs. (2) The age stage and mobility characteristics of the old-age drifters are important factors affecting their residence willingness. (3) Family care affects the residence willingness of the old-age drifters. Family care behavior has an inhibitory effect on the willingness of the old-age drifters to stay in cities, which mainly shows that the willingness of the old-age drifters who care for the younger generations to stay in cities together with their children is significantly reduced. (4) The spiritual needs and social integration of the old-age drifters living in cities need social support. Older men with poor health tend to be unwilling to live in cities with their children, and social integration and living habits restrict their willingness to stay in cities, which may be related to the old-age care needs, especially the unsatisfied spiritual needs and the traditional gender division of labor caused by the downward shift of intergenerational balance. On the whole, the old-age drifters' willingness to live together with their children remains at a high level, while some old-age drifters under the influence of the division of family care show a tendency to continue to live together with their children, indicating that some old-age needs are divided. However, due to the constraints of the current social security system and the inertia of social and cultural models, most old people have to rely on their families when facing the choice of old-age care. In China's modernization and market-oriented reform, although the individualization process has been achieved by leaps and bounds in employment and other fields, and the individualization tendency of young people is becoming more and more obvious, the dependence of the elderly group on family care is still the mainstream choice, which makes the family become the fundamental source for elderly individuals to obtain old-age care protection, sense of belonging and value sustenance. Most elderly people have not stepped out of the family care tradition and are unwilling to move towards elderly care institutes, which indicate that the unsound social security system and social support restrict the elderly's choice. Therefore, the change of intergenerational concept of the old-age drifters means that the first thing to be solved in the industrialization and socialization of old-age care in China in the future is to improve the social security and social support conditions of the elderly, and then to change their dependence on family pension.
It is very important to calculate the total pension tax expenditure in China for correctly evaluating the present situation of pension system, clarifying the reform orientation and expanding the research frontier. At present, China’s pension system has covered 90% of population, so it is urgent to find out the tax expenditure of the pension system and evaluate the preferential pension tax policy. Firstly, this paper chose the Enterprise Income Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Individual Income Tax Law of the People’s Republic of China as the benchmark tax system for estimating the pension tax expenditure, took the fiscal caliber and global caliber as auxiliary measures, and analyzed and estimated China’s pension tax expenditure including the three tax pillars and the National Social Security Fund one by one by adopting the revenue foregone method, and finally obtained the total tax expenditure of the pension system. The first pillar pension consists of basic endowment insurance for urban workers and urban and rural residents. In 2018, the tax expenditure was CNY 642.018 billion, including CNY 644.394 billion for urban workers and CNY −2.376 billion for urban and rural residents. The total income from wages and salaries was CNY 21,065.6 billion, and the average income tax rate of wages and salaries was 4.32%. The second pillar of enterprise annuity and occupational annuity adopts the standard EET tax model (exempt contributions, exempt investment income and capital gains of the pension institution, taxed benefits). In 2018, the tax expenditure generated by the second pillar was CNY 53.754 billion, including CNY 43.223 billion of enterprise annuity and CNY 10.531 billion of occupational annuity. In 2018, the VAT tax expenditure of commercial pension insurance was CNY 24.87 billion. The tax expenditure of individual income tax generated by the third pillar of individual tax deferred commercial pension insurance totaled CNY 11 million. According to the estimation results, the different results caused by the three measurement calibers show that the global caliber is the most comprehensive measurement caliber with the most tax expenditure, which is closer to the current situation of the pension system. The calculation results based on the fiscal caliber show that the tax expenditure is the least, which means that the tax preferential policy can be implemented widely. The benchmark tax system is based on the above-mentioned two laws, which is in line with many developed countries, and the calculation results are moderate. In China’s pension system, the state bears a heavy financial responsibility, and the enterprises bear a heavy financing burden, which once again confirms the necessity of continuous and substantial fee reduction in recent five years. Although there are great differences in the results of the three estimation standards, they all show that the tax expenditure reduced by enterprises should be shifted to the second and third pillars as soon as possible, and the tax preferential policies should be strengthened to make the tax preferential policies become an important driving force for promoting the development of multi-level pension system. The scale of tax expenditure of 10-trillion-yuan pension fund is too small, so it is of great significance to strengthen the investment reform to improve the sustainability of pension. Accelerating the pace of pension fund investment reform and increasing investment income is an important means to improve the sustainability of pension system and cope with the aging population. In order to promote the development of multi-pillar pension system, a statistical calculation system of pension tax expenditure should be established in due course. In the recent decade, the statistical calculation of tax expenditure of grass-roots financial departments has accumulated certain experience. European countries and America focus on the second and third pillars in studying and tracking tax expenditures. In fact, China should do the same, and it is more urgent for relevant departments to bring the second and third pillar pension tax expenditures into a package of system arrangement in due course while vigorously developing the second and third pillars.
China has made remarkable achievements in anti-poverty work in rural areas. Although on the whole, China’s population returning to poverty is declining, the scale in 2016 still reached 684,000, and the number in 2017 was 208,000. Therefore, consolidating the achievements of poverty alleviation and building a long-term mechanism to solve family poverty have become the key tasks of the next stage explicitly deployed by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. In this paper, the concept of time was introduced into poverty analysis, and then the speed and stability of poverty alleviation of rural families were explored. Based on the data of China’s household tracking survey, the accelerated failure time model and binary choice model were fitted, and we has the following findings. (1) There is a long-term dependence in poverty alleviation of rural families, and 37.2% of the poor people can quickly get rid of poverty after one year, but with the extension of time, the proportion of people who can get rid of poverty after five years drops to 8.6%. (2) After getting rid of poverty, the per capita income of most families will increase to more than twice the poverty standard in the same period, but nearly 15% of people who get rid of poverty will return to poverty after three to five years. (3) If family members go out to work or change the use of land resources to improve the value of their own land assets, the probability of families getting rid of poverty can be improved quickly, and the probability of families getting higher income growth after getting rid of poverty will be improved as well. However, families with chronic diseases get rid of poverty more slowly, and the income growth after getting rid of poverty is even lower. (4) The income subsidy provided by the government to poor families has no significant effect in helping them get rid of poverty and restraining their return to poverty, and it will also reduce the probability of families earning higher income after getting rid of poverty. The conclusion of this paper provides rich policy implications for the government to build a long-term mechanism to solve poverty problems. Considering that poverty caused by illness and sick families have obvious disadvantages in the speed of getting rid of poverty and the income growth after getting rid of poverty, this paper holds that the primary task of building a long-term anti-poverty mechanism is to ensure the health needs of rural family residents and effectively reduce the burden of residents’ medical expenses. Therefore, it is necessary to further deepen the reform of the current rural medical insurance system, increase the proportion of medical reimbursement, and expand the scope of medical reimbursement. At the same time, it is necessary to actively explore and promote flexible mechanisms such as anti-poverty medical insurance, medical mutual aid and mutual assistance, which are jointly participated by the government, enterprises and individual residents. From the channel of increasing residents’ income and getting rid of poverty, we can effectively link the current strategy of targeted poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, deepen the reform of rural property rights, accelerate the empowerment and certification of land and homesteads, and appropriately revitalize rural household assets, thus creating a favorable institutional environment for increasing residents’ income. In terms of the family, both rural migrant workers and the value of family land assets play a significant role in getting rid of poverty quickly and stably. Therefore, from the perspective of building a long-term mechanism, the government can make use of the current pairing assistance policy. On the one hand, the government can, through policy guidance and special fund support, establish industrial skills training for rural residents, improve family human capital to encourage and broaden the channels and opportunities for rural family laborers to go out for employment, and create a stable income source for families to get rid of poverty. On the other hand, it can make use of existing land resources endowment according to local conditions. At the same time, in view of the limited role of government subsidies in helping families get rid of poverty, this paper suggests that the government subsidies for poor families should ensure the basic living needs of families, combining poverty alleviation with publicity and education to transform the ideological understanding of poor families, and actively cultivate and encourage the endogenous motivation of families to get rid of poverty independently.
How to improve the sustainability of pension fund and the labor participation rate of elderly workers is an important issue to actively deal with the aging population. The labor participation rate of elderly workers is an important guarantee for the sustainability of social pension fund for a country. Social pension system affects the retirement behavior of elderly workers, and then affects their labor participation rate. Based on the Harmonized health and retirement tracking data, this paper first calculated the social pension wealth of workers at different retirement ages according to the calculation method of Chinese and American social pension systems, then calculated three incentive variables reflecting the social pension system, namely, cumulative value, peak value and option value, and finally estimated and compared the retirement incentive effects of Chinese and American social pension systems on workers by using the duration model. The results are as follows. (1) The wealth of social pension has little influence on retirement, and the influence direction on retirement differs in different estimation models. (2) There are significant differences between China and the United States in the direction and magnitude of the impact of cumulative value and peak value on retirement. In China, the cumulative value and peak value have a significantly positive impact on early retirement of workers, while in the United States, the cumulative value and peak value have no significantly negative impact on early retirement of workers. (3) Option value has a significantly positive impact on workers' retirement in both China and the United States. The change of option value leads to the change of early retirement probability. The retirement age of Chinese men are twice that of American men; and the retirement age of Chinese women are 2.5 times that of American women. The research conclusion shows that option value is reasonable as an index to reflect the retirement incentive of social pension system and to compare the early retirement incentive effect of Chinese and American social pension systems. Based on the option value model and drawing lessons from the advantages of American social pension system, China can optimize the incentive mechanism of social pension system from aspects of retirement age structure (or pension age structure) and pension payment structure, and then give full play to its inherent advantages. The specific measures are as follows. (1) China may clearly distinguish the statutory retirement age from the pension threshold age. In order to allow workers to have a variety of retirement ages according to the social pension system, while gradually increasing the retirement age, China should clearly distinguish the retirement age from the pension threshold age. Pension threshold age is the age at which workers can receive pension, and it is also the earliest retirement age of workers. In addition, the latest age for receiving pension should be set, that is, after workers reach the normal retirement age, they can postpone receiving pension until the latest age. The pension level of workers after retirement will be subject to actuarial adjustment with different retirement ages and pension threshold ages. (2) China may provide delayed retirement allowance. Delayed retirement allowance is provided for those who have delayed retirement after reaching the normal retirement age. After the workers reach the normal retirement age, the pension will increase in a certain proportion for every month of delayed retirement. The longer the delayed retirement time, the greater the proportion of pension increases. While for early retirees, the pension will decrease in different proportions. (3) China may establish a retirement income testing mechanism. For those who have reached the earliest retirement age and started to receive pension, if their work income exceeds the upper limit of income test, the social security department will deduct part of the pension according to their work income level. Against the background of aging population, China can increase the upper limit of retirement income test and reduce the proportion of pension deduction, so as to encourage the elderly workers to extend the labor supply time.
