The impact of China's latest population policy changes on maternity insurance—a case study in Jiangsu Province

Abstract

SummaryThis study aims to examine the impact of China's population policy changes on social insurance. Nearly 4 decades ago, China ushered in the 1‐child policy as a family planning policy to control the adverse effect of high population growth. The current maternity insurance system in China is designed to fit the operations of the 1‐child policy. However, the implementation of the comprehensive 2‐child policy can pose a challenge to the sustainability of the current maternity insurance scheme hence the call for reform.The study empanels a novel and comprehensive system dynamic model that incorporates all the related factors that influence the income and expenditure of maternity insurance in the Jiangsu Province. Data are mainly derived from the historical data of the Statistical Yearbook of Jiangsu Province and the National Bureau of Statistics of China. These are used to construct and simulate a system dynamic model to determine a sustainable contribution rate for maternity insurance.In conclusion, if the rate of contribution of the current maternity insurance policy is not increased, the burden of implementing the comprehensive 2‐child policy will exacerbate the current deficit balance of the maternity insurance fund. The existing maternity insurance benefits thus cannot be maintained, and women's health will be threatened. In the short term, the study proposes an increase in the rate of premium payment to prolong the life of the maternity insurance. In the long term, there is a need to improve the level of coordination and expand the coverage of maternity insurance.

Bolstering Maternity Insurance to Support Family Health of Ethnic-Minority Women under Universal Two-Child Policy: Empirical Evidence from China’s Ningxia-Hui Autonomous Region

“…Since the contribution rate is paid by the employer, excessive increase will lead to employers shunning female employment in preference for their male counterparts. This will further aggravate the already precarious economic inequality between male and female employees 33 .…”

Sustainable Development of China’s Maternity Insurance System in the Context of Population Policy Changes: Using a Grounded Theory Approach

“…An unsustainable MIS may reduce women's willingness to have children. For the sustainability of the MIS, it is necessary to make the MIS compatible with socio-economic development and maintain fund balance [12,13].…”

“…Although the actual population growth remained lower than expected, the comprehensive two-child policy has been effective in increasing the number of births. According to a recent study [12], the current comprehensive two-child policy in China has already led to the unsustainability of the maternity insurance fund. This is a phenomenon worth examining, as a deficit in the maternity insurance system is likely to change the trend of increasing birth rates among insured people.…”

“…With the new policy, the government also abolished incentives for late parenthood and late marriage [19]. Recently, China is planning to merge national health insurance with maternity insurance [12]. These reforms aim to increase the risk resilience of the maternity insurance fund.…”

“…Specifically, the level of socio-economic development, bank interest rates, population mobility status, taxation, child-care services, education preferences, and housing price regulation indirectly influence it [22], while payment method, compensation policy, the contribution rate, and the number of insured people are the direct factors that have greater impacts and higher frequency [23][24][25]. 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 At present, there are few studies on the sustainable development of the maternity insurance system, mainly focusing on the impact of population policies on the MIS [12,15]. Some researchers have focused on the maternity allowance, operation of the maternity insurance fund, and reform of MIS [13,[26][27][28].…”