Cost of living, education and jobs key to resolving population issues

The central authorities recently stressed the need to improve the fertility support policy system, developing universal care and childcare service systems, reducing families' living and education burdens, and promoting the building of a childbearing friendly society in order to realize balanced population development.

To build a childbearing-friendly society, the country must eliminate various factors that are affecting people's childbearing willingness.

China's population peaked last year, decades earlier than expected, and it is also aging fast as predicted. The size of the population aged 60 and above in China is larger than that in the United States, Japan and the European Union combined. Whether the demographic challenge can be properly addressed will decide the sustainability of the country's development in the foreseeable future.