Reform takes improving people's livelihood as its ultimate goal, promoting the development of people's livelihood undertakings

The "Five Goals" of education for all, employment for all, medical care for all, elderly care for all, and housing for all are the main objectives of the Party and the state in building a moderately prosperous and harmonious society, and are also the well-being that all the people aspire to.

Over the past 20 years, reform in hot livelihood areas such as education, employment, medical care, and social security has continued to advance. Looking at the development of our country's education undertakings and the evolution and changes of the social security system, it is not difficult to find that the "Five Goals" reform objectives we have been anticipating are gradually being realized. How to let the people live a better and happier life in the future and truly realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is precisely the direction in which governments at all levels are striving.

Reform promotes the development of livelihood undertakings

⟦NL> Wang Liejun, director and associate researcher of the Social Development Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said in an interview with a reporter from China Economic Times that over the past 20 years, our country has made important progress and achievements in safeguarding and improving people's livelihood by improving basic public services, mainly reflected in the following aspects: First, important breakthroughs have been made in the construction of the basic public service system. Second, government investment in people's livelihood has continued to increase. Third, the coverage of basic public services has continued to expand.

In education, compulsory education has entered a new stage of comprehensive development, truly achieving universal and free education; higher education has achieved a historic leap from elite to mass education, with scale continuing to expand and types becoming more diverse; vocational education has flourished with the support of national policies, with capacity building comprehensively strengthened and the financial aid system increasingly improved.

In employment, through a series of reform measures, the employment system under the planned economy framework in which the government dominated "unified assignment and allocation" has been reformed into a new employment system led by enterprises and employers and in line with the laws of labor market supply and demand. The mechanism combining workers' independent choice of employment, market-regulated employment, and government-promoted employment has been improved, creating equal employment opportunities, improving employment quality, and striving to achieve full employment.

In medical care and social security, first, the supply of medical services and medicines has expanded rapidly, pharmaceutical technology has improved markedly, the micro-efficiency of medical service institutions has been greatly improved, the medical conditions of citizens have been greatly improved, and a medical security system covering all people has been initially established. Second, regarding social old-age insurance, the basic old-age insurance system for urban workers was first reformed, implementing social pooling of old-age insurance fees, establishing an old-age insurance system combining unified accounts, and unifying the basic old-age insurance system for enterprise workers. In addition, reform and exploration were also carried out on the retirement and pension system for government agencies and public institutions, and an old-age security system for farmers was established, as well as the minimum living guarantee system in urban and rural areas. Through a series of reforms, a framework of the old-age security system has been initially formed, consisting of the current old-age insurance for urban and rural residents, basic old-age insurance for urban workers, and the pension system for government agencies and public institutions.

In housing security, while promoting the development of the real estate market, the affordable housing policy was also implemented, and a low-rent housing security mechanism was established to effectively solve the housing difficulties of low-income urban families.

Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, also said in an interview with our reporter that the achievements of our country's education development are, first, a substantial increase in the average number of years of education. Second, a substantial increase in the number of people receiving higher education, with more than 7 million university students serving society every year and contributing to social development, which promotes the development of the country and the nation.

Problems of social injustice still exist

"Over the past 20 years, the achievements of our country's reform in the social system have been remarkable, but some new problems have also been spawned along with the reform, especially the problem of social fairness, which has always been difficult to solve," said Chen Qianlang, secretary-general of the Zhejiang Chamber of Commerce in Hebei Province and chairman of Hebei Zherong Investment Co., Ltd., in an interview with our reporter.

He said that our country's livelihood undertakings have changed enormously, but still need to be further improved. For example, the issue of educational fairness is something the government has always wanted to solve but has never been able to solve. It involves many factors, including the resistance of the inherent system, the imbalance of regional economic development, and the disparity in teaching resources.

Zhu Lijia agreed with this. He said that the distribution of public service resources in our country indeed still has inequalities between regions, between urban and rural areas, and among groups of people.

In Zhu Lijia's view, the uneven distribution of educational resources is an important factor leading to educational unfairness, reflected in the system and mechanism: urban-rural inequality and unequal educational levels.

"What people feel most strongly about in education is the unequal public financial investment in education and insufficient public financial support for education in old revolutionary base areas, ethnic minority areas, border areas, and impoverished areas. In addition, full medical coverage and equalization are also insufficient, and different groups of people enjoy different levels. In the future, medical and health services and security levels should be enjoyed equally by every citizen," said Zhu Lijia.

Zhu Lijia believes that the main direction of livelihood work is to increase employment. Only with full employment can the people live and work in peace and contentment.

In the view of Gong Sen, director of the Institute of Public Administration and Human Resources of the Development Research Center of the State Council, the current social policy system has phenomena of institutional fragmentation, difficulty in implementation, and unfairness, as well as problems of insufficient financial investment and weak supervision and evaluation.