So, what is the quality of population? Demographers in China believe that "population quality" is a polysemous concept, which can be understood and defined from different angles. In other words, "population quality" is a relative concept, and there may be different provisions in different disciplines. The basic theoretical issue of the connotation and extension of "population quality" has been the focus of many scholars since the revival of demography in China in the early 1970s, and there are still different opinions. Professor Zhang Chunyuan of Peking University gave the definition of population quality very early. He defined it in his masterpiece "A Course on Population Theory": "Population quality is the condition and ability that people have to understand and transform the world." Mu Guangzong believes that the so-called population quality or population quality refers to various social functions and influences of population structure and combination under certain historical conditions. Higher population quality and population quality generally always have more reasonable structure and combination, and also have stronger social functions and more positive influence. From the extension of population quality, it is mainly the dispute between "three elements" and "two elements". According to the traditional "three elements" theory, population quality includes three aspects: physical quality, scientific and cultural quality and ideological and moral quality; It is believed that physical quality is the natural condition and foundation of population quality, and scientific and cultural quality and ideological and moral quality are the center of population quality. The other one also has an impact? Quot The theory of "three elements" holds that "quality" means "potential", including physiological potential and psychological potential; As far as the internal structure of population quality is concerned, it includes physical quality, intellectual quality and non-intellectual quality or psychological quality for short. Chen Jian's dualistic theory in 1988 holds that "population quality" can only be composed of physical quality and cultural and scientific quality. The reasons are as follows: if the ideological and moral quality is included, it is difficult to compare the population quality internationally because of the lack of unified measurement standards; Indicators are difficult to classify and quantify, even if it is a moral norm that pan-human beings must follow.
Judging from the current understanding, neither the theory of "three elements" nor the theory of "two elements" seems to have completely got rid of the suspicion of equating "population quality" with "human quality". But to take a step back, if structural factors are considered, it seems that it is not undesirable. Undoubtedly, we should not only see the connection between "population quality" and "human quality", but also see the difference between them. Therefore, the so-called "population quality" or "population quality" is the "human quality" in the sense of overall average, systematic organic and structural combination.
Population quality involves gender, age, occupation, population health, national policies, social relations, education level, interpersonal communication, environment, heredity and many other factors. The ideological quality of population refers to people's social psychology, traditional customs, national self-esteem, dedication, sense of mission, self-confidence and desire to change society. The ideological quality of the population can be reflected in social appeal, cohesion and social vitality. The physical quality of the population can be reflected by a group of people's physical exercise ability, development status, disease status, mortality rate, the proportion of disabled and retarded population, life expectancy at birth and other indicators. The general indicators reflecting the cultural quality of the population are: the proportion of people with higher education to the total population, the proportion of college students to the total population, the composition of the population's cultural level, illiteracy rate, scientific research rate, the proportion of scientific research personnel, the proportion of secondary professional and technical personnel, the technical level of technicians, the level of social management and production management, and the creative ability of workers.
China is the most populous country in the world, and the current population policy is to "control the population and improve the quality of the population". At present, China's agricultural population accounts for a large proportion, and illiterate and semi-illiterate poor people account for a certain proportion. The incidence of birth defects is still high in some areas, especially in remote and poor areas. It is still a very arduous task to improve the quality of the birth population and solve the problems brought about by the aging population and the sexualization of the birth population.
According to the data provided by relevant departments, about150,000 newborns are born every year in China. According to incomplete statistics, serious birth defects account for 1.3%, that is, there will be 200,000 birth defects every year. In China, 20-25% people suffer from various genetic diseases, among which monogenic diseases account for 5-7%, polygenic diseases account for 15-20%, and chromosomal diseases account for 0.5- 1%. Mental retardation is the main reason that affects the quality of population. In China, there are about 1-2% mentally retarded people with IQ below 70, about 500-180,000 mildly and moderately retarded people, and about 1-20,000 idiots. People without genetic diseases in our population may also be carriers of disease-causing genes. It is estimated that each person carries an average of 5-6 harmful genes, which will be passed on to the next generation in some way. With the development of industry, many chemicals are continuously put into our living environment, some of which will induce gene mutation and increase our gene load. Due to the progress of hospital technology, some genetic diseases have been cured, which to some extent makes the pathogenic genes passed on to future generations and increases the genetic load. Based on the above aspects, China urgently needs to popularize the knowledge of eugenics to improve the quality of the population.
It is gratifying that the main data of the fifth national census show that the quality of China's population has been further improved. The crude illiteracy rate (1the proportion of illiterate population aged 5 and above to the total population) in this census is 6.72%, which is 9. 15.88% lower than that in the 190 census. At the same time, compared with the 1990 census, the enrollment of every education level per 654.38 million people has changed greatly, and the number of people with college education or above has increased from 1422 to 361person, an increase of154%; The number of high school graduates increased from 8039 to 1 1 146, an increase of 39%; The number of people with junior high school education increased from 23,344 to 3,3961person, an increase of 45%; The number of people with primary school education decreased from 37057 to 357 o/kloc-0, a decrease of 4%. In the 1990s, the speed of improving the cultural quality of China's population was rare since the founding of the People's Republic of China. This trend reflects China's achievements in eliminating illiteracy among young and middle-aged people, popularizing nine-year compulsory education and vigorously developing higher education in the past 10.
However, China still faces the important task of improving the quality of the population. In the final analysis, the future world competition is the competition of a country's population quality. Judging from the requirements of sustainable development, among many problems of population and development, population quality is the most noteworthy because it occupies a central position. Therefore, to coordinate the relationship between population and development, an important consideration is to strive to improve and improve the quality of the population. First of all, the competition in the future world is, in the final analysis, the competition of national comprehensive quality. To maintain sustained economic development, it is necessary to comprehensively improve the comprehensive quality of the people. National comprehensive quality consists of physical quality, intellectual quality, cultural quality, scientific and technological quality, political quality and moral quality, in which physical quality and intellectual quality are the premise of scientific and technological cultural quality, while scientific and technological cultural quality is the basic quality of national comprehensive quality. Secondly, population growth and lack of natural resources are the basic contradictions in China's economic development. The key to solve this contradiction lies in improving the quality of population while controlling the population, and replacing natural capital with human capital. This can not only achieve the breakthrough of "growth limit", but also replace and protect natural resources to some extent. In addition, improving the comprehensive quality of the people is an important guarantee for realizing China's sustainable development strategy and accelerating the strategic deployment of rejuvenating the country through science and education, that is, the basic premise of rejuvenating the country through science and education is the substantial improvement of the scientific education and cultural quality of the whole nation, which in turn depends on the improvement of basic qualities such as physical strength, intelligence and health. Therefore, to rejuvenate the country through science and education, we must first revitalize science and education; To rejuvenate the country through science and education, we must first invest in people and improve their comprehensive quality.
China has entered 2 1 century, and the new century is full of competition and challenges. Whether a prosperous and civilized country can stand among the nations in the world depends on a country's national quality, the number of talents and the success or failure of education. Then, how should China improve the quality of its population in order to remain invincible in the fierce international competition? Proceeding from the actual national conditions in China, the following tasks should be done to improve the quality of the population at present:
1. Control population. By the end of 1999, the total population of China was125.9 billion, accounting for 2 1% of the world population. Due to the large population base, despite the active implementation of family planning, the annual net increase in population still reaches about130 thousand. Overpopulation is the primary problem facing our country: the situation of low population quality is difficult to fundamentally change in the short term, the pressure of labor and employment is further increased, the problem of population aging is more prominent, and the contradiction between population and society, resources and environment is still acute. Therefore, while striving to develop production, we should stabilize the current family planning policy, establish a good policy environment and a complete control and guarantee system, strengthen the legal construction of population and family planning work, and improve the level of administration according to law. While doing a good job in the national family planning work, we will continue to focus on rural areas, especially the central and western regions, incorporate population issues into the overall planning of the strategy of developing the western region, give play to the exemplary role of cities and eastern regions, and promote the balanced development of population and family planning work. Controlling population growth is conducive to accelerating capital accumulation, accelerating economic development and laying an increasingly solid material foundation for improving population quality.
2. Actively promote eugenics. Fundamentally speaking, advocating eugenics is to develop the high-quality genes of the population and suppress the inferior genes.
3. Attach great importance to and vigorously develop education, science and technology. Education, science and technology are great undertakings to develop intellectual resources and the basic ways to improve the scientific and technological quality of the population. The urgent task is to vigorously promote quality education, reform basic education, realize the transformation from exam-oriented education to quality education, make education better serve economic development, adapt to the reform of national political system and economic system, and implement the national strategic decision of "rejuvenating the country through science and education" and "sustainable development".
4. Further improve medical and health conditions, expand collective welfare, and ensure the health of women and children. In short, give full play to the superiority of the socialist system, develop China's economy, culture, science and technology as soon as possible, and realize the four modernizations as soon as possible. This is the fundamental way to improve the quality of the population.
Improving the quality of the population is a fundamental, long-term and huge strategic task, which includes people's strong physique, good cultural literacy, noble morality, pursuit of knowledge, diligence and courage. From childhood to old age, from physiology to psychology, from natural material basis to family and social environment, we will continuously improve the quality of the population in all directions. We must adhere to all material and spiritual civilizations that are conducive to improving the quality of the population; Anything that harms people's physical and mental health materially and spiritually and hinders the improvement of the quality of the population must be resolutely resisted. Improving the quality of the population requires a good education system, but at the same time, it also depends on all aspects of individuals, families and society, from small to large, throughout the whole life and production activities, and educates the people with positive and negative experiences.
Bibliography:
Chen Jian. 1988. Introduction to population quality. Liaoning People's Publishing House.
Rola Chen. 1998. fertility difference between urban and rural population and population quality.
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