Combining population and economic policy to push development

China's fresh cabinet restructuring plan has the top economic planning agency assuming the task of creating population policies in the world's most populous nation, a move analysts say will enhance coordination in policy-making and benefit overall development.

According to the plan expected to be adopted at the ongoing annual parliamentary session, the existing National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) will take on the functions of studying and drawing up population development strategies and policies, which are currently the work of the National Population and Family Planning Commission (NPFPC).

Analysts say population is the basis for making public policies. After the restructuring, the NDRC, which is responsible for formulating national social and economic development strategies, will help coordinate population policy making with that of other policies.

In the long run, this will give rise to sustained development between the population and the economic and natural environments, they say.

Ma Li, an expert on population studies and cabinet counsellor, said the population can be analyzed based on four factors -- size, demographics, distribution and education level.

To ensure sustainable and coordinated development between the population and the economy, environment and resources, it is essential to balance population policy with external conditions, Ma explained.

She said China's population is too large, not well educated and aging as a whole, and these problems are increasingly hampering development.

"These problems call for an over-arching strategy. Entrusting the NDRC to plan population policies and other strategies on an overall basis meets this requirement," she said.

Discrepancies between population policies and other development policies can often lead to social, economic and environmental challenges. Problems like corruption and severe unemployment can all be attributed to such discrepancies, to varying degrees, analysts say.

China is no stranger to the consequences of unrealistic population policies. The country's population soared in the 1970s, due to a lack of forward-thinking analysis, and this momentum continued until the one-child policy was implemented in the early 1980s.

According to Wang Guangzhou, a research fellow with the Institute of Population and Labor Economics under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, research on population, especially research related to forecasting, is of paramount importance in drafting development strategies that satisfy both short-term and long-term needs.