Zhi Min and Sun Yashan: Intensifying the Efforts to "Invest in People"
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out: "We must respond to the people's expectations for a better life, adhere to the principal position of the people, and closely integrate the high-quality development of the population with high-quality life for the people, while closely integrating 'investing in things' with 'investing in people.'" The 2025 Government Work Report proposed to "promote more capital and resources to 'invest in people' and serve the people's livelihood; support the expansion of employment, promote increases in resident income while reducing their burdens, and strengthen consumption incentives, thereby forming a virtuous cycle between economic development and the improvement of people's livelihood." On the new journey, we should accurately grasp the profound connotation of "investing in people," persist in holistic planning and scientific layout, and innovate institutional mechanisms. This will form an organic unity where economic development and livelihood improvement support each other in a dynamic equilibrium, providing lasting momentum for accelerating high-quality development and advancing Chinese-path modernization.
"Investing in People" Plays a Crucial Leading Role
Promoting more capital and resources to "invest in people" can create more inclusive and equitable conditions for the people to improve their education levels and enhance their developmental capabilities. This raises the level of human capital and worker skills across the entire society, adapts to the trend of upgrading social consumption from survival-oriented consumption to development- and enjoyment-oriented consumption, increases the supply of high-quality products and services, and continuously stimulates new demand, effectively promoting consumption growth.
As one of the "three carriages" [1] of economic development, the quality and efficiency of investment are directly related to the character and sustainability of economic development. Human capital has a cumulative effect; it can activate the creative potential of individuals and help shift economic development from being driven by traditional factors to being driven by human capital. This achieves geometric growth in investment returns and improves the consumption capacity of residents. At the same time, anchoring "investing in people" to the needs of development and the aspirations for livelihood will effectively resolve future anxieties, stabilize social expectations, and boost consumption confidence. Through the guidance of consumption, it encourages investment entities to focus on investment directions with reasonable returns, adjust production structures, and reduce invalid and low-efficiency investment, thereby forming a smoother cycle between investment and consumption.
The essence of development is the expansion of human capabilities. Only by responding timely and effectively to the people's expectations, serving people's livelihoods with more capital and resources, and translating economic growth into perceptible income increases, improved living standards, and spiritual fulfillment, can we stimulate the initiative of the masses to jointly maintain the development environment, promote the development process, and share in the fruits of development. Meanwhile, "investing in people" is based on the needs of well-rounded human development, establishing a capacity-building system that covers the entire population and the full life cycle, including both welfare improvement and quality enhancement. Improving the quality of human resources and life can better mobilize the creativity and enthusiasm of the masses, providing sustainable intellectual support and innovation momentum for achieving high-quality development.
Based on Well-rounded Human Development and Multi-dimensional Needs
In the new stage of development, the demands of the masses for the quality, level, and efficiency of health services are gradually increasing. We must focus on universal health coverage and life-cycle management. By optimizing the allocation of medical resources and strengthening disease prevention and health promotion, we can construct an integrated health security system of "prevention-diagnosis/treatment-rehabilitation." We will actively promote the expansion of high-quality medical resources and their balanced regional distribution, creating a more scientific pattern of hierarchical medical diagnosis and treatment so that high-quality medical services are equitable and accessible. Adapting to the new normal of population development, we will improve fertility support policies and incentive mechanisms to maintain a moderate fertility level and population size. We will push disease prevention and control toward "early screening and early diagnosis." Primary-level medical institutions will enhance health intervention capabilities through chronic disease management, contracted family doctors, and telemedicine collaboration networks. We must continuously increase health science popularization and publicity, promoting a shift from disease treatment to health management, from medical intervention to behavioral guidance, and from individual healthcare to environmental creation, ensuring health services and protection throughout the entire course of life and continuously raising the level of health literacy for all.
We must promote the expansion and quality improvement of educational resources, strengthen the standardization of compulsory education, and increase the supply of school places in senior secondary education, striving to ensure every child enjoys equitable and high-quality education. We will guide universities to face the needs of economic and social development and national strategic requirements, improving the mechanism for adjusting the setting of disciplines and majors. We will strengthen the construction of basic, emerging, and interdisciplinary subjects to cultivate composite innovative talents. We will promote the integration and penetration between general education and vocational education, strengthen the organic link between industrial demand and educational supply, enhance the adaptability of vocational education to economic and social development, and form a talent cultivation system covering the full life cycle.
Employment is the most fundamental element of the people's livelihood. We must adapt to new trends in population change and technological transformation, comprehensively utilizing policy measures such as fiscal and financial support, tax incentives, and social security to promote the deep integration of industrial upgrading and employment promotion in a coordinated manner. Using the development of new quality productive forces as a starting point, we will cultivate and strengthen emerging industries, plan and build future industries, and simultaneously develop industries related to people's livelihoods, creating job supply through the extension of industrial chains. We will strengthen digital empowerment, construct an inclusive and shared employment service network, create an employment support system, and improve the efficiency of public employment services and labor market matching. We will improve the social insurance systems for people in flexible employment, migrant workers, and those in new forms of employment. We will formulate differentiated labor standards for new employment models and clarify core rights protection indicators, ensuring every worker can obtain decent labor and fair development opportunities.
Consumption is not only the main driver of economic growth but also an important means of improving people's livelihoods. Entering the new stage of development, we must persist in combining the stimulation of consumption with the protection of people's livelihoods, striving to build a positive cycle mechanism where consumption leads economic growth and development fruits benefit the people. On one hand, following the trend of rapid development in service consumption and the upgrading of commodity consumption demand, we should increase the supply of high-quality products and services and promote the standardization of services such as healthy elderly care, domestic services, and childcare. We will actively cultivate new types of consumption, accelerating the layout of tracks such as digital, green, and health consumption, and develop new business formats like low-altitude tourism, guochao [2] cultural and creative products, and ice and snow sports to strengthen new growth points for consumption. On the other hand, we must maintain a dual focus on institutional guarantees and regulatory innovation, improving the consumer rights protection system and continuously purifying the consumption environment. We will speed up the improvement of systems and legal frameworks involving quality standards, credit constraints, comprehensive governance, and consumer rights protection. At the same time, we will strengthen the precision and timeliness of market supervision, ensuring early detection and rapid handling of acts that infringe on consumer rights, thereby effectively enhancing resident consumption confidence.
Implementing "Investing in People" Requires Scientific Planning and Coordinated Advancement
Persist in "acting within one's capability while doing one's utmost" [3] to fully release consumption potential. We must strengthen institutional supply and "do our utmost" to promote inclusive, basic, and bottom-line livelihood construction. Following the laws of economic and social development, we must coordinate needs and possibilities, "acting within our capability" to base livelihood improvements on economic development and fiscal sustainability. We should increase investment in fields such as education, medical care, culture, tourism, elderly care, and childcare in a step-by-step manner, achieving a fusion of productive investment and potential consumption.
Persist in "comprehensive coverage while highlighting key areas," striving to expand effective supply. Responding to the trend-like characteristics of China's population development—such as the declining birthrate, aging, and regional population fluctuations—we must promote the coordination of basic public service supply with population changes, forming a development model that combines full-cycle care in livelihood construction with targeted measures. We will advance this with systematic thinking, promoting more balanced basic public services based on the livelihood security needs of different groups at different stages of their life cycle. Meanwhile, focusing on the consumption upgrade trends of the "old and young" [4], we will develop multi-level elderly care security and undertakings, improve the public service system, and provide inclusive services with guaranteed quality, affordable prices, and sustainable operations. We will provide more precise professional skill training and public employment services for the young employed population and older workers. We should leverage the multiplier effect of institutional innovation and technological progress on supply upgrading. Through a combination of systematic policy tools such as investment, taxes, and institutional reforms, we will leverage more social forces to participate and expand effective supply.
Persist in "scientific coordination and exercising strength in two areas," promoting the realization of well-rounded human development. "Investing in things" and "investing in people" are dialectically unified and mutually reinforcing. Increasing efforts to "invest in people" is conducive to the all-around release of individual potential and the comprehensive improvement of livelihood well-being. We should maintain a reasonable scale and level of "investing in things," clarify the priority order and negative lists for government investment, and coordinately promote infrastructure construction and public service supply. By steering more capital and resources into medical care, education, housing, and professional development, we can improve the quality and capability of workers, resolve the anxieties of talents in their careers, promote technological innovation, and cultivate new quality productive forces, ultimately achieving well-rounded human development.