CASE STUDY ONE: Untranslated Fertility and Resource Allocation in Contemporary China
- chen
- March 9, 2022
Background
In 2021, China’s birth rate reached an all-time low. As the birth rate declines and life expectancy increases, worker shortages limit economic growth and reduce tax revenue required to maintain an elderly population. As a result, China eased its one-child policy to three-child in 2021. However, the extent to which such policy changes will have an effect is unknown.
Research Questions:
- How financial resources, as a multifaceted object, promotes or hinders the realization of fertility desires?
- How the effects of different types of resources vary across social contexts?
Study design
2016 Survey of Chinese Families' Fertility Decision-Making Processes
Sample
I use the CFPS 2016 data which contains information on 6000 households in 12 cities and 6 provinces. My sample includes 4643 currently married women 20-49 years old.
Methodology
I use a sequence of multilevel linear regression with province random effect because provinces could be very different in development level, gender norms, and fertility culture. To investigate the contextual effect of financial resources, I run separate analyses for urban and rural regions and compare the two social environments.
Findings & Impact
Key Findings
- Different resources have different effect on the same direction of fertility realization.
- The same resources have different effects on different directions of fertility realization.
- Social context matters!
Impact
The research bridged a theoretical gap of the effect of financial resources as a collection of resources on the fertility desire-intention gap.
