Facing the increasingly complex new phenomena and characteristics of population aging, low birth rates, and low marriage and childbearing rates, how to promote high-quality population development is a comprehensive, long-term, and strategic issue that China currently faces. The Central Leadership's significant article was published in the journal "Seeking Truth." The article proposes that by deepening reforms and innovations in the education and health sectors, establishing and improving the fertility support policy system, strengthening the development and utilization of human resources, implementing a proactive national strategy to address population aging, and better coordinating the relationship between population and the economy, society, resources, and the environment, the essence of high-quality population development is clarified, providing new ideas and methods for the upcoming population development strategy.

Many new ideas, understandings, and methods proposed in the article will become new directions for China's population development strategy. For instance, it explicitly states that "in the past, population work focused mainly on 'management,' but in the future, the scope of work will be broader and the granularity finer, placing greater emphasis on 'guidance' and 'incentives,' transitioning from primarily relying on government forces to collaborative governance between the government and society." This represents a significant upgrade in the tone of the population development strategy, a new positioning of population development from a quantity-scale model to a quality-value model, which will prompt a comprehensive re-layout of China's population development strategy.

At the same time, the article clearly states that "we should closely integrate 'investment in things' with 'investment in people', do our best and act within our means, and establish a comprehensive population service system that covers the entire population and the entire life cycle." This statement underscores that the foundation of the population development strategy is service, reflecting that future population development strategies will build the bridge to Chinese-style modernization through service.

The current aging, low birth rates, and low marriage and fertility rates in our country have led to a shift from population growth to a stage of population decline. The demographic dividend is transitioning from quantity-scale to quality-value type. This change is an inevitable process of economic and social development. As the economy and society develop, particularly with the improvement of the social security and welfare system, the value of time will become increasingly scarce. For families, the mindset of raising children as a form of investment for old-age security is gradually shifting towards a durable consumption mindset focused on enjoyment. Therefore, the significant time consumption required for raising and having children, combined with the increasing scarcity of time value, inevitably reduces people's preference for fertility and child-rearing.

At the same time, the population exhibits distinct human capital characteristics within the family and society, making childbearing and rearing not only a family issue but also a social one. This implies that the population development strategy has become an endeavor that requires collaborative governance by the government, society, and families. Therefore, the shared governance of the government, society, and families can no longer rely on the past population policies that primarily focused on "management." Because marriage and childbearing are voluntary and self-consistent behaviors, and so is nurturing. The most prominent feature of humans is their malleability. To truly focus on population quality and high-quality development, nurturing must become a pleasure for families rather than a burden. Otherwise, if people only bear children without nurturing them, it is difficult to truly cultivate individuals. This requires the government to provide a supportive framework throughout the life cycle, based on encouragement and guidance, to effectively reduce the time costs associated with childbearing and nurturing.

This supportive framework based on the entire life cycle of the population must first establish a sense and belief in public services in terms of institutional and policy tones. That is, the focus of the population development strategy lies in adjusting and changing the constraints that affect people's marriage and childbearing, making marriage, childbirth, and child rearing voluntary enjoyments rather than tasks and burdens. Only by breaking away from the path dependence of utilitarianism and truly providing public services that ensure people's freedom from want and fear in childbearing and child rearing can high-quality population development transform from an ideal into reality.

A supportive framework for the entire life cycle of the population primarily involves establishing a sound and comprehensive protective security system. Institutional economics divides institutions into two major types of institutional matrices: one is a transparent guarantee system with the characteristics of a spear for development, and the other is a protective security system with the characteristics of a shield for development. The former expands the boundaries of economic and social development possibilities, while the latter ensures the resilience of the economy and society. It is urgent to provide as much social security support as possible for population migration, allowing people to find suitable partners and parenting opportunities within a larger temporal and spatial context; improve maternity insurance to reduce parenting costs, such as enhancing parental facilities; in the education sector, truly tailor teaching methods based on the cognitive growth patterns of individuals, linking education with economic and social changes; simultaneously, improve public service security systems such as social security and healthcare to ensure people have a strong sense of fulfillment and security.

One of the prominent reasons for the current low birth rate in China is the urgent need to enhance people's sense of gain and security. For instance, in the primary distribution of national income, the proportion of labor income is relatively low, and the inadequacy of the social security and welfare system forces people to save for the future to mitigate uncertainties. Therefore, expanding the coverage and improving the level of social security and welfare, creating an environment where workers can achieve greater peace of mind in less time, will allow people to have more time to consider marriage and childbearing, and the companionship in raising and educating children can truly become a source of joy.

High-quality population growth requires a people-centered population development strategy to support it, the need for a robust public service system to reduce people's time costs and eliminate uncertainty about the future, while continuously expanding people's free activity space and providing more supportive institutional frameworks for individuals.