鼓励生育的政策及其效果：国际经验、回顾和展望

在已有的鼓励生育的政策中，现金补贴政策具有操作简单、作用直接、指向明确的特点，对鼓励生育有积极作用，其实施效果受补贴力度、父母受教育水平以及家庭收入等因素影响；税收优惠政策实施时间较晚，具有操作复杂、调节精细化等特点，但其作用尚未取得一致性的结论，其实施效果受育龄妇女年龄、教育水平以及家庭收入水平等因素影响；产假政策具有覆盖面广、历史悠久、制度完备等特点，对鼓励生育有积极作用，但效果较小，其实施效果受家庭收入、女性劳动供给等因素影响。国际上可供借鉴的经验包括：提高政策支持力度，及早进行干预，更容易产生效果；在干预政策的选择上，现金补贴政策可先于税收政策，产假制度可作为辅助，使政策之间形成配合；对政策进行精细化设计，如鼓励多孩和大家庭、男性产假等。

Pro-birth Policies and Their Effects: International Experience,Review and Outlook

Pro-birth policies are universal across the world, but the background and process of policy implementation and the effects of these policies can only be found in scattered individual studies, with a lack of systematic review and evaluation. In China, the introduction of these types of policies is mainly related to studies based on East Asian countries, especially the Republic of Korea and Japan. Studies on policies of the West are rarely seen in China, even though the analysis of the implementation, specific background and effects, are quite relevant to China's population policies in the future. This paper presents an analysis of the features, effects and influence of pro-family policies and offers experience for reference. Three types of family benefit systems are considered. Firstly, the paper describes the characteristics of cash-benefit policies including: removing social restrictions on recipients of benefit; easy to introduce and maintain; having an easily manageable direct moderating role; long history of practice in countries where they have been implemented; a general increase in allowances; and that policies are more targeted, for example, the cash-benefit policy for multi-child families is favored by most countries. Secondly, the paper also describes tax-benefit policies, which are characterized by being relatively difficult and complex to introduce and maintain, requiring sophisticated moderating which must be more targeted, and that this is a recent model. The final benefit system considered is maternity leave policies, which are widely used. They have the longest history of the models studied and provide the most complete system. They include parental leave for men but these policies are costly and have many restrictions. On the whole, the cash-benefit policies are conducive to promoting fertility among women. Their implementation results are subject to the amount of allowances, how well the parents are educated and their family income, birth order and macroeconomic factors. There are still no agreed conclusions on the role tax-benefit policies play in promoting fertility. However, it is understood that important factors include childbearing age, family income and level of education. Maternity leave policies have a positive, but small impact on fertility increase and are dependent on elements including family income and the role of women in the labor market. Recommendations for reference are as follows. From the perspective of financial incentives, the effectiveness of cash-benefit policies is connected with the degree to which they are implemented. That is, the more allowance, the greater the effect. The timing of introduction is also important. An early intervention leaves more room for adjustment of policy implementation and is more likely to be effective. Phased introductions may be considered. Cash-benefit policies can be adopted in the first phase, followed by tax policies and finally, maternity leave system can act as a supporting policy of the previous two. Policy complementarity wise, a cash-benefit policy often works with others. For instance, it adds baby bonus to maternity leave, which improves the effect of the policies in return. Policies must be finely designed. A good example is that by backing multi-child and bigger families and introducing maternity leave for men, policies will produce more targeted moderating effects.