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China's Below‐Replacement Fertility: Government Policy or Socioeconomic Development?

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  • Yong Cai

Abstract

The article challenges the notion that below‐replacement fertility and its local variation in China are primarily attributable to the government's birth planning policy. Data from the 2000 census and provincial statistical yearbooks are used to compare fertility in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, two of the most developed provinces in China, to examine the relationship between socioeconomic development and low fertility. The article demonstrates that although low fertility in China was achieved under the government's restrictive one‐child policy, structural changes brought about by socioeconomic development and ideational shifts accompanying the new wave of globalization played a key role in China's fertility reduction.

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  • Yong Cai, 2010. "China's Below‐Replacement Fertility: Government Policy or Socioeconomic Development?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 36(3), pages 419-440, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:popdev:v:36:y:2010:i:3:p:419-440
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2010.00341.x
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    3. Fei Wang & Liqiu Zhao & Zhong Zhao, 2017. "China’s family planning policies and their labor market consequences," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(1), pages 31-68, January.
    4. Quanbao Jiang & Ying Li & Jesús Sánchez-Barricarte, 2016. "Fertility Intention, Son Preference, and Second Childbirth: Survey Findings from Shaanxi Province of China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 935-953, February.
    5. Liu Qiang & Fernando Rios-Avila & Han Jiqin, 2020. "Is China's Low Fertility Rate Caused by the Population Control Policy?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_943, Levy Economics Institute.
    6. Feng Wang & Yong Cai & Ke Shen & Stuart Gietel-Basten, 2018. "Is Demography Just a Numerical Exercise? Numbers, Politics, and Legacies of China’s One-Child Policy," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(2), pages 693-719, April.
    7. Daniel Goodkind, 2018. "If Science Had Come First: A Billion Person Fable for the Ages (A Reply to Comments)," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(2), pages 743-768, April.
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    9. Daniel Goodkind, 2017. "The Astonishing Population Averted by China’s Birth Restrictions: Estimates, Nightmares, and Reprogrammed Ambitions," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(4), pages 1375-1400, August.
    10. Xianling Zhang & Fei Guo & Zhenwu Zhai, 2019. "China’s Demographic Future Under the New Two-Child Policy," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 38(4), pages 537-563, August.
    11. Wang, Xuebo & Zhang, Junsen, 2018. "Beyond the Quantity–Quality tradeoff: Population control policy and human capital investment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 222-234.
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    13. Yun Liang & John Gibson, 2017. "Location or Hukou: What Most Limits Fertility of Urban Women in China?," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 527-540, September.

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