On December 29, the seminar on high-quality population development and evaluation was held in Beijing. At the meeting, the research teams of High-Quality Development Evaluation Institute, Population Research Institute, College of Sociology and Population Sciences of NJUPT released the “World Population High-Quality Development Index 2023” and the “World Population High-Quality Development Top 100 List”.

Seminar on High-Quality Population Development and Evaluation held in Beijing

　　The research team has constructed a complete set of comprehensive evaluation index system for high-quality population development on the basis of a thorough review of domestic and international theories on population development and extensive consultation with experts. The indicator system consists of five primary indicators and 12 secondary indicators, namely, population quality, population economic development, population quality of life, population livable environment and shared development for all. Using authoritative data publicly released by the United Nations (UN), the World Bank (WB) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the evaluation comprehensively analyses the high-quality development of population in more than 100 countries around the world, including China, for which data are available, and ranks the top 100 countries with high-quality population development.

　　Compared with existing comprehensive indices related to population development, such as the Human Development Index (HDI), the Social Development Index and the Quality of Life Index, the Population Quality Development Index is characterized by four main features: first, it places greater emphasis on the role of population development in supporting economic and social development. On the basis of following the law of population development, it evaluates the extent to which population development is in line with economic and social development, and evaluates the extent to which the goal of improving the “overall quality of the population” has been achieved in modernization; secondly, it puts more emphasis on the “high quality” dimension of population development. Secondly, more emphasis is placed on the “high quality” dimension of population development. Secondly, it emphasizes more on the “high quality” dimension of population development, focusing on evaluating the quality of population and the overall development level of population. Third, it reflects the level of human development in a more comprehensive way. In addition to considering the development of the population itself, the index also emphasizes the interrelationships between the population and the economy, the population and the environment, the population's high quality of life, and the level of sharing, so as to comprehensively reflect the kernel of high-quality development of the population; fourthly, it adopts the combination of the expert evaluation method and entropy weighting method to determine the weights of the indexes. This not only reflects the theoretical connotation of high-quality population development, but also better identifies the differences in high-quality population development between regions.

　　China ranked 46th on the list of the world's top 100 countries for high-quality population development. Compared with the latest edition (November 2022) of the United Nations Human Development Index, ranking 79th with a score of 0.768, China's reform and development has paid more attention to the development of “human beings”, and the effectiveness of high-quality population development is remarkable.

　　Experts and scholars from many universities and research institutions in China attended the conference. The participating experts fully affirmed the significance of the release of the World Population Quality Development Index, and believed that the newly released Population Quality Development Index and evaluation results not only help to comprehensively understand the level and ranking of China's high-quality development of population, but also help to establish China's discourse system in the field of international evaluation of population development, and promote countries to pay more attention to the improvement of the quality of the population and the improvement of the overall level of development. The experts expect that the Population Quality Development Index will become an important reference for future population development and make greater contributions to the high-quality development of China's and the world's population.

（Written by Peng Dasong  Initially Reviewed by Sha Yong   Edited by Wang Cunhong   Reviewed by Zhang Feng）