Building a fertility support system centered on “developmental empowerment” is crucial for advancing high-quality population development during the 15th Five-Year Plan Period. The current fertility support model, dominated by an emphasis on material compensation over developmental empowerment, fails to effectively alleviate the deep-seated pressures faced by individuals of childbearing age arising from career interruptions, value devaluation, and the rigidification of the gendered division of labor. The deep-rooted crux of this model lies in the “quality-responsibility” paradox, formed between society’s high expectations for parenting quality and the excessive privatization and gendering of child-rearing responsibility. This paradox renders the “developmental cost” of childbearing, manifested in career interruptions and lost opportunities, unprecedentedly high, severely suppressing fertility intentions, especially among women. Drawing on the requirements of the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan and targeting the structural fracture between macro-level policy logic and micro-level family development needs, this study constructs a three-dimensional analytical framework of “concept-pathway-institution” to systematically demonstrate the paradigm shift of the fertility support system from “cost compensation” to“developmental empowerment”. This study argues that the fertility support system should take safeguarding the right to all-around human development as its value orientation, and that enhancing fertility levels should be a derivative effect of the system’s effective operation rather than its direct goal. Accordingly, at the conceptual level, it is necessary to re-evaluate values from private burden to public investment, establishing the social investment attribute of parenting and the developmental rights of caregivers. At the pathway level, a support network of “cultural recognition-service resources-opportunity guarantees” should be constructed, particularly to establish occupational opportunity guarantees that eliminate the “motherhood penalty”. At the institutional level, a four-pillar system driven by “rule of law, coordination, incentives, and evaluation” is required to clarify the boundaries of rights and strengthen incentive compatibility, ensuring the continuous optimization of the system.