XI. Ensuring and Improving the People's Wellbeing
Ensuring and enhancing the people's wellbeing in the course of development is one of the major tasks of Chinese modernization. In line with the principle of doing everything within our means, we will refine the systems of basic public services, with the focus on providing inclusive services, meeting essential needs, and providing a cushion for those most in need. We will strive to resolve the most practical problems that are of the greatest and most direct concern to the people so as to meet people's aspirations for a better life.
(42) Improving the income distribution system
We will build an institutional framework under which primary distribution, redistribution, and tertiary distribution are well coordinated and mutually complementary. We will work to raise the share of personal income in the distribution of national income and give more weight to work remuneration in primary distribution. We will improve the mechanisms for determining wages, ensuring that they are increased at a reasonable rate and that they are paid in full, and refine the policy system for distribution based on factors of production. We will improve the redistribution mechanisms such as taxation, social security, and transfer payments. We will support the development of public interest activities and charities.
We will keep income distribution and the means of accumulating wealth well-regulated, open more avenues for urban and rural residents to increase their property incomes, and put in place systems to effectively boost the incomes of low-income earners, steadily expand the size of the middle-income group, and properly regulate excessive incomes. We will further reform the salary-setting mechanism for SOEs and rationally determine and strictly regulate the remuneration standards, allowances, and benefits for SOE executives at all levels.
(43) Improving the employment-first policy
We will develop sound mechanisms for promoting high-quality and full employment, refine the related public services system, and work hard to tackle structural unemployment. We will improve the system of employment support for key groups such as college graduates, rural migrant workers, and ex-service members and the system of lifelong vocational skills training. We will coordinate urban and rural employment policies, simultaneously advance service reforms related to household registration, human resources, and personnel records, improve the policy environment to boost employment by encouraging business startups, and support and regulate the development of new forms of employment. We will improve the systems and mechanisms for promoting equality of opportunity and see that the channels for social mobility are unimpeded. We will refine the mechanisms for labor relation consultations and mediation and do more to safeguard workers' rights and interests.
(44) Improving the social security system
We will improve the system for unified national management of basic old-age insurance funds and the unified national platform for social insurance public services. We will develop sound systems for ensuring that social security funds are kept safe through supervision and their value is maintained and increased over time. We will refine the mechanisms for financing basic old-age insurance and basic medical insurance and for adjusting the benefits of both as appropriate. Basic pension benefits for rural and non-working urban residents under the basic old-age insurance scheme will be raised gradually. We will build a sound social security system to serve people in flexible employment, rural migrant workers, and those in new forms of employment and expand the coverage of unemployment insurance, workers' compensation, and childbirth insurance programs. We will see to it that all restrictions preventing people from accessing social security in the places where they work but do not hold permanent residency are lifted and that policies for transferring social security accounts are improved. We will move faster to develop a multi-tiered, multi-pillar old-age insurance system, expand the coverage of the annuity system, and promote the implementation of private pension schemes. We will leverage various commercial insurance schemes as a supplementary support. We will work toward provincial-level unified management of basic medical insurance funds, further reform medical insurance payment models, improve major disease insurance and medical assistance schemes, and tighten oversight over medical insurance funds. We will improve the social assistance system, the system for protecting the lawful rights and interests of women and children, and the social security and service systems for people with disabilities.
We will move faster to establish a housing system that supports both housing rentals and purchases and foster a new development model for the real estate sector. We will scale up the building and supply of government-subsidized housing to meet the essential need of salaried people for a home to live in. We will also work to support the diverse needs of urban and rural residents for better housing. Municipal governments will be given greater decision-making powers to regulate the real estate market, and based on local conditions, some cities will be permitted to abolish or reduce restrictions on housing purchases and to scrap relevant standards for ordinary and non-ordinary housing. We will carry out reforms to change the way real estate development is financed and to improve the advance purchase system for commodity housing. Improvements will also be made to the taxation system in the real estate sector.
(45) Further reforming the medical and healthcare systems
We will implement a health-first strategy. We will improve the public health system, promoting public participation as well as collaboration and integration between hospitals and disease prevention and control institutions and boosting capacities for disease monitoring and early warning, risk assessment, epidemiological investigation, testing and inspection, emergency response, and medical treatment. We will support coordinated development and governance of medical services, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals. We will do more to increase the availability of quality medical resources and see that such resources are channeled toward the community level and more evenly distributed among regions. We will move faster to develop the tiered diagnosis and treatment system, propel the development of tightly knit medical consortia, and upgrade the services of community-level medical and healthcare institutions. We will deepen the reform of public hospitals to see that they better serve the public interest, establish mechanisms whereby medical expenses are primarily based on medical services, improve the remuneration system, and set up a mechanism for making dynamic staffing adjustments. We will guide and better regulate the development of private hospitals and introduce new approaches in the supervision of medical and healthcare services. We will improve the mechanisms for supporting the development of innovative drugs and medical equipment and for promoting the preservation and innovative development of traditional Chinese medicine.
(46) Improving the systems for supporting population development and providing related services
We will improve the population development strategy in response to population aging and the declining birth rate. A sound system will be instituted to provide full life-cycle population services to all in order to promote high-quality population development. We will refine the policy system and incentive mechanisms for boosting the birth rate and strive to build a childbirth-friendly society. We will work to bring down the costs of childbirth, parenting, and education, refine parental leave policies, introduce a system of childbirth subsidies, improve basic public services for childbirth and pediatric medical care, and further raise the childcare-related deduction for personal income tax. We will make greater efforts to develop a public-benefit childcare service system and provide support for employer-run nurseries, community childcare facilities, and home-based childcare. Based on the general patterns underlying population flows, we will see that public services follow the movement of populations and facilitate the reasonable concentration of people in and their orderly flow between urban and rural areas and different regions.
To actively respond to population aging, we will refine the policies and mechanisms for developing elderly care programs and industries. We will develop the silver economy and support the creation of diverse jobs tailored to elderly people. In line with the principle of voluntary participation with appropriate flexibility, we will advance reform to gradually raise the statutory retirement age in a prudent and orderly manner. To boost the supply of basic elderly care services, we will develop community-based facilities, improve the operation mechanisms for public-run institutions, encourage and guide the participation of enterprises and other non-governmental actors in service provision, and promote mutual-aid elderly care and the integration of medical care and elderly care. We will work faster to shore up weaknesses in rural elderly care services. We will also see to it that better services are provided for elderly people with special difficulties including those who live alone, have disabilities, or suffer from physical impairment, and accelerate the introduction of insurance schemes for long-term care.
