Abstract: Since the reform and opening up, China's child care and protection system has undergone a transformation and upgrading from bottom-line guarantee to classified guarantee, from filling in the gaps to moderate inclusiveness, and from material guarantee to "material guarantee + service guarantee". Significant progress has been made in child welfare, child protection, child health and child education. This article holds that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, children's work is facing a situation of "four reductions and four increases". To build a child-friendly society, efforts should be made in aspects such as raising the strategic positioning of giving priority to children's development, establishing a comprehensive policy system for giving priority to children's development, improving the public service system for giving priority to children's development, and strengthening the construction of national child-friendly cities and communities.
Key words: Child-friendly society Child welfare "Think

​ The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of women and children. The period of the 14th Five-Year Plan is the first five years to embark on a new journey of fully building a modern socialist country and advancing towards the second centenary goal. 

Meaning

1. In terms of population size
China is a country with a large number of children. According to estimates, there are currently about 270 million children and teenagers in China, accounting for approximately one fifth of the total population. The number of children in China ranks second in the world. The safety, health, education, rescue and growth of children are important components of the people's aspiration for a better life. Therefore, children's development should become a key area of focus for public policy.
2. From the perspective of individual growth
Childhood is a crucial period in one's life development. Research from the Harvard Center for Child Development shows that in the first few years of life, a child's brain develops at an astonishing rate, capable of establishing over one million neural connections per second, a speed that cannot be replicated at any subsequent stage. It is evident that this period is a crucial stage for children's physical and mental development as well as cognitive growth. Providing necessary opportunities and conditions for survival, development, protection and participation will lay a solid foundation for children's lifelong development.
3. From the perspective of national development
Positive child welfare policies can effectively reduce poverty and promote long-term economic and social development. For China, babies born in 2020 will gradually enter their adolescence by 2035 and reach their thirties by 2050, becoming an important force in the socialist modernization drive and a high-quality human capital on which the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation relies. Therefore, the level of child care and protection in a country reflects its level of civilization and development. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, we should, from the perspective of national development and people's happiness, consider children's development in the overall context of economic and social development and promote it systematically.
The situation faced by children's work
The period of the 14th Five-Year Plan is the first five years to embark on a new journey of fully building a modern socialist country and advancing towards the second centenary goal. When studying what children's work should do and how to do it during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, it is essential to examine children's development in the broader context of The Times. Overall, the situation that children's work is facing during the 14th Five-Year Plan period can be summarized as "four reductions and four increases" :
The potential growth rate of the economy has declined, and the pressure on expenditures for people's livelihood security has increased

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the traditional drivers that have supported China's long-term high-speed economic growth will weaken, and the country will shift from a high-speed growth stage to a high-quality development stage. The global outbreak of the novel coronavirus has exacerbated the evolution of the major changes unseen in a century. Economic globalization has encountered headwinds, and the world has entered a period of turbulence and transformation. In the next five years, the internal and external environment for China's economic development will become increasingly complex. The potential growth rate of the economy will face downward pressure, the growth of fiscal revenue will slow down, and the pressure on basic livelihood security expenditures will increase. At the same time, equal access to basic public services is a fundamental right of citizens. Providing basic public services is an inescapable and important responsibility of the government, the cornerstone of ensuring social fairness and justice, and an inevitable requirement for achieving common prosperity. Therefore, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, people's livelihood security will face many difficulties. However, the care and protection of children remain an area that the government needs to continuously invest in and pay attention to.
2. The size of the child population has decreased, while the quality requirements for care and protection have increased
Since 1982, the size of the child population and their proportion in the total population in our country have been continuously declining. It is expected that the trend of a decline in the size of the child population will not change during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. However, groups such as orphans, abandoned infants, homeless children, and children who are actually without guardians still need the state to provide them with the most basic guarantees and assistance. Children in difficult circumstances and left-behind children in rural areas need more precise care and protection. Traditional children's welfare institutions are also facing new transformations. They not only need to provide basic services such as placement, care and treatment for hospitalized children, but also undertake socialized functions such as children's education, rehabilitation, as well as support and training for families of disabled children.
3. Supplementary demand has decreased while inclusive demand has increased
At present, the development of children's welfare in our country has gradually evolved from a relief-type stage mainly focusing on the care of abandoned infants to a supplementary stage mainly based on the adoption of orphans. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, as China's comprehensive national strength continues to rise, residents' income keeps increasing, the public service system is constantly improving, and the main responsibility of family guardianship is continuously strengthened, the number of children in difficult circumstances and rural left-behind children will be continuously reduced from the source. It can be foreseen that traditional supplementary policies will exist
The space for the 14th Five-Year Plan period will further shrink. However, at the same time, with the changes in modern family structures, the new generation of parents generally attach great importance to their children's upbringing. The demand for services such as children's education, health, cultural entertainment and the cultivation of quality and ability continues to grow. Children's development policies will further transform from "filling the gaps" to "moderate inclusiveness".
4. The pressure on rural security has decreased while that on urban security has increased
On the one hand, the production, living and public services in rural areas have been significantly improved. The number of people starting businesses and working nearby has increased, the development capacity of rural families has been enhanced, and the problem of guardianship for left-behind children in rural areas has tended to ease. On the other hand, towns
Urbanization is still in a relatively rapid development stage and shows a characteristic of transforming from speed-oriented to quality-oriented. The general trend of population moving into cities has not changed. This means that a large number of rural migrant population have been converted to urban household registration, and the number of children moving with them has increased. Objectively, this will expand the scope of child protection for urban children in difficult circumstances, disabled children, and other groups. The continuous deepening of population migration among cities and the spread of the problem of left-behind children from rural areas to cities have also put forward new requirements for the welfare and protection of urban children. How new citizen families, especially children, can integrate into the community more smoothly will also become an urgent issue that needs attention.

The problems faced

Since the reform and opening up, China's child welfare and protection system has undergone a transformation and upgrading from bottom-line guarantee to classified guarantee, from filling in the gaps to moderate inclusiveness, and from material guarantee to "material guarantee + service guarantee". Significant progress has been made in four aspects: child welfare, child protection, child health and child education. However, in the face of new situations, new requirements and new tasks, children's development still encounters some prominent problems that need to be urgently addressed.
The decentralization and fragmentation of management functions affect the formation of an overall synergy in children's development policies
Child management involves multiple departments with overlapping functions. The civil affairs department is responsible for the care of left-behind children and the assistance of children in difficult circumstances. The education department is responsible for children's education. The health department is responsible for children's health care. The All-China Women's Federation, the Communist Youth League and
The Disabled Persons' Federation and others are respectively responsible for different children's welfare matters, and their management functions are relatively scattered. Children's policies mainly stipulate children's rights from aspects such as education, health, social welfare, and the protection of minors. They are scattered across various industries and fields, making coordination and interaction difficult. There is a lack of systematic norms regarding the beneficiaries, implementing entities, sources of funds, and standard levels. The content is fragmented, and the implementation of policies lacks uniformity and concentration.
2. The supply system of high-quality public services for children's development is not sound and complete

The supply of child care services is insufficient. According to estimates, there are currently about 50 million infants and toddlers under the age of 3 in China. Based on the target of a 30% enrollment rate, the gap in childcare places is approximately 13 million. By the end of 2018, nearly one fifth of school-age children across the country were still unable to attend kindergartens. The gross enrollment rate in parks in some contiguous poverty-stricken areas is only about 50%. The development of medical services lags behind. The proportion of children's hospitals is low, and there is a shortage of hospital beds and medical staff. As of 2018, there were 129 children's hospitals in China, accounting for 1.63% of the total number of specialized hospitals. The number of pediatric beds accounted for 5.32% of the total hospital beds, which is not in harmony with the proportion of pediatric patients discharged in a year, which is 8.52% of the total number of discharged patients. Physicians in children's hospitals are responsible for treating an average of 13.1 patients per day, which is much higher than the 7.1 patients in general hospitals. The quality of domestic service is not high. In 2018, maternal and infant care had become the largest market share in the domestic service industry, accounting for 31.4%. However, there are also problems such as low scale and incomplete qualification recognition of service personnel. Nationwide, large-scale domestic service enterprises only account for 22% of the total number of domestic service enterprises, and employee-based enterprises account for less than 3%. Less than 20% of employees have been working stably for more than one year, and incidents such as "poisonous nannies" abusing children occur from time to time.
3. The policy system for children's development is still in a supplementary stage
From the policy practice of caring for left-behind children in rural areas, it can be seen that at present, it is mainly limited to the material deficiency level, and psychological counseling and behavioral correction are relatively common. The proportion of rural left-behind children who first access the Internet before the age of 10 is as high as 91.8%. Without company, it is very easy to become addicted to online games. Relatively speaking, urban migrant children are restricted by their household registration. Due to the limitations of financial resources and human resources, the local governments of the inflow areas can only provide relatively low-level public services to migrant children on the premise of giving priority to meeting the needs of children with household registration. In addition, modern cities have to some extent squeezed the space for children's physical and mental growth. In urban construction, the majority of urban blocks, roads and communities have not fully taken into account the demand for children's activity Spaces, and the supporting facilities are not yet complete. The high-density layout of urban buildings neglects the natural development needs of children and reduces their opportunities to interact with nature. Generally, large, medium and small cities lack public facilities for children's activities that combine education with entertainment. The artificial and stereotyped growth environment for urban children has, to varying degrees, hindered their natural cognition and physical development.

Countermeasures and suggestions

1. Enhance the strategic positioning of giving priority to children's development
It is suggested that the priority development of children be incorporated into the national strategic system, given priority in formulating economic and social development plans, prioritized in ensuring financial input, and prioritized in meeting children's rights, welfare and development needs in public resource allocation. In line with national strategies such as poverty alleviation, rural revitalization, rejuvenating the country through science and education, healthy China and innovation-driven development, we will promote the integration of children's priority development into all policies and implement the requirements of children's priority development in all aspects, including improving laws, formulating policies, formulating plans and deploying work.
2. Build a comprehensive policy system for giving priority to children's development
It is suggested that a coordination mechanism for children's policies be established, with the comprehensive department taking the lead and relevant departments participating in accordance with their duties. This will further enhance the comprehensiveness and integrity of children's policies, and form a joint force to give priority support to children's development in terms of policy coordination, financial input and project implementation. Systematically sort out the problems of unbalanced and inadequate development in children's growth, and with the goal of achieving a better life for children and creating a bright future for them, study and formulate inclusive policies for promoting children's priority development. At the same time, a statistical evaluation index system for children's priority development should be improved.
3. Improve the public service system for children's priority development
In combination with promoting the filling of gaps, strengthening of weak points and improvement of quality in public services, more attention should be paid to the particularity of children in areas such as childcare, education, medical care, culture and sports, reflecting the development needs of children, promoting the tilt of public resources towards children, and enhancing the quality of services. We will improve the system for giving priority to public services to children in difficult circumstances, children with disabilities, left-behind children and migrant children, and moderately raise the standards of relevant services and guarantees. Explore the establishment of a medical expense exemption system for special groups of children and specific childhood diseases, and targetedly exempt restrictive provisions such as the medical insurance payment directory, payment limits and drug dosages.
4. Strengthen the construction of child-friendly cities and communities
In conjunction with promoting new urbanization, a number of cities with a solid foundation and a strong willingness to reform will be selected to pilot the construction of child-friendly cities, strengthen the construction of child-friendly communities, and strive to make urban planning and construction adapt to the needs of children's growth and development, and improve the living and growth environment of children in communities. Formulate construction guidelines by category, and rationally renovate parks, schools, hospitals, streets, squares, roads, green Spaces and children's centers to provide more safe and green indoor and outdoor public Spaces for children's entertainment activities, transportation and nature education. Mobilize social resources to actively participate and promote the entry of high-quality childcare, preschool education, domestic services and sports and fitness resources into communities. Carry out exchanges of child-friendly cities among countries and regions along the Belt and Road Initiative to promote people-to-people bonds through child-friendliness.