Predictions of Preschool Age Population and Resource Demands from 2024 to 2035: A Study Based on the "Three-Child" Policy

Against the background of the full implementation of the "three-child" policy, this study, based on the data from the Seventh National Population Census, uses the CPPS2020 software to predict the birth population, the school-age population, and the number of children enrolled in preschools in the period of 2024-2035. It uses the two total fertility rate scenarios including high and low fertility rates and measures the demand for full-time teachers and financial inputs for each of these years in kindergarten institutions. The results include: in 2035, China's birth population will increase by 990 000 and decrease by 60 000 under the high scenarios and low scenarios respectively compared with 2024; the total number of school-age population and children in kindergartens will decrease overall and cluster towards cities, and the scale of children in kindergartens will be between 24.98 million and 27.52 million by 2035, with 71% to 72% of the children in kindergartens attending school in cities and towns. In terms of the current level of supply of educational resources, preschool institutions in urban and rural areas and full-time teachers in towns and cities can meet future demand, while there is a large shortage of full-time teachers and education funding in villages. There is a need to coordinate the allocation of urban and rural preschools, promote the mobility of urban and rural teaching resources, establish a mechanism for sharing preschool education funding proportionally according to different projects and the various levels of the financial systems, and allocate more financial input to costs of personnel and utility.