Demographic Change and Educational Reform: Sociological Interpretation Based on the Data of the Seventh Census

Demographic structure is the basic structure of a society, and is an important indicator for observing and judging the overall structure of society and its changes. Grasping the basic nature of the current social structure and changes is an important prerequisite for predicting the future development trend of education. Data from the Seventh National Census Bulletin show that China's population has undergone drastic changes and has entered a new era of ultra-low fertility rate, aging China, floating China, and urban–rural China, which will have a significant impact on the future development of education. In response to these changes, China's education should move toward a new stage of high-quality development transformation as well as the construction of new lifelong education, new citizenship education and new rural education. It can be predicted that for a considerable period of time in the future, China will show the contradictory phenomenon of total excess and structural deficiency of educational resources at the same time. In this regard, we should respond to the demographic dividend crisis through education quality improvement and connotative development; deep aging requires the construction of a new lifelong education system; the fundamental solution to the education problem of the migrant population depends on the final overcome of the urban–rural structural obstacle; the new stage of rapid urbanization and rural revitalization calls for a new form of rural education.