IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v165y2023i1d10.1007_s11205-022-03013-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Family Size and Intergenerational Inequality: Evidence from China's One-child Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Shuai Zhao

    (Shandong University)

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between family size and intergenerational inequality in China. We construct a fuzzy non-parametric regression discontinuity design by the exogenous variation in fertility caused by the one-child policy. Our findings present that the one-child policy only results in a downward jump in urban fertility but does not significantly affect rural areas. The empirical results further suggest a negative correlation between family size and intergenerational inequality, but there is no evidence for the causal effect. The role of siblings in sharing risks, son preference, birth-order effect, more accessible student aids or loans and relaxed budget constraints are potential explanations for no causal effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Shuai Zhao, 2023. "Family Size and Intergenerational Inequality: Evidence from China's One-child Policy," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 283-307, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:165:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-022-03013-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-022-03013-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11205-022-03013-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-022-03013-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mette Ejrnæs & Claus C. Pörtner, 2004. "Birth Order and the Intrahousehold Allocation of Time and Education," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 1008-1019, November.
    2. Meng, Xin & Gregory, Robert & Wang, Youjuan, 2005. "Poverty, inequality, and growth in urban China, 1986-2000," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 710-729, December.
    3. Deirdre Bloome, 2017. "Childhood Family Structure and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 54(2), pages 541-569, April.
    4. Corak, Miles & Lindquist, Matthew J. & Mazumder, Bhashkar, 2014. "A comparison of upward and downward intergenerational mobility in Canada, Sweden and the United States," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 185-200.
    5. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1976. "Child Endowments and the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 143-162, August.
    6. Sandra E. Black & Paul J. Devereux & Kjell G. Salvanes, 2005. "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children's Education," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 669-700.
    7. Mark R. Rosenzweig & Junsen Zhang, 2009. "Do Population Control Policies Induce More Human Capital Investment? Twins, Birth Weight and China's "One-Child" Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(3), pages 1149-1174.
    8. David S. Lee & Thomas Lemieux, 2010. "Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(2), pages 281-355, June.
    9. Qin, Xuezheng & Zhuang, Castiel Chen & Yang, Rudai, 2017. "Does the one-child policy improve children's human capital in urban China? A regression discontinuity design," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 287-303.
    10. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    11. Bhalotra, Sonia & Rawlings, Samantha B., 2011. "Intergenerational persistence in health in developing countries: The penalty of gender inequality?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(3-4), pages 286-299, April.
    12. Laura Chadwick & Gary Solon, 2002. "Intergenerational Income Mobility Among Daughters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 335-344, March.
    13. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2005. "Fortunate Sons: New Estimates of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States Using Social Security Earnings Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 235-255, May.
    14. Andrew Gelman & Guido Imbens, 2019. "Why High-Order Polynomials Should Not Be Used in Regression Discontinuity Designs," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(3), pages 447-456, July.
    15. Xiaoyu Wu & Jianmei Zhao, 2020. "Risk sharing, siblings, and household equity investment: evidence from urban China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(2), pages 461-482, April.
    16. Diego Restuccia & Carlos Urrutia, 2004. "Intergenerational Persistence of Earnings: The Role of Early and College Education," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1354-1378, December.
    17. Monique De Haan & Erik Plug & José Rosero, 2014. "Birth Order and Human Capital Development: Evidence from Ecuador," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 49(2), pages 359-392.
    18. Zhong, Hai, 2014. "The effect of sibling size on children's health: a regression discontinuity design approach based on China's one-child policy," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 156-165.
    19. Solon, Gary, 1992. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 393-408, June.
    20. Nancy Qian, 2008. "Missing Women and the Price of Tea in China: The Effect of Sex-Specific Earnings on Sex Imbalance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1251-1285.
    21. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-1189, December.
    22. Honge Gong & Andrew Leigh & Xin Meng, 2012. "Intergenerational Income Mobility In Urban China," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 58(3), pages 481-503, September.
    23. Joshua Angrist & Victor Lavy & Analia Schlosser, 2010. "Multiple Experiments for the Causal Link between the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(4), pages 773-824, October.
    24. Carmichael, Fiona & Darko, Christian K. & Ercolani, Marco G. & Ozgen, Ceren & Siebert, W. Stanley, 2020. "Evidence on intergenerational income transmission using complete Dutch population data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    25. Yang, Juan & Qiu, Muyuan, 2016. "The impact of education on income inequality and intergenerational mobility," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 110-125.
    26. Martin Nybom & Jan Stuhler, 2017. "Biases in Standard Measures of Intergenerational Income Dependence," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 52(3), pages 800-825.
    27. Kelly Musick & Robert Mare, 2004. "Family structure, intergenerational mobility, and the reproduction of poverty: Evidence for increasing polarization?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(4), pages 629-648, November.
    28. Zimmerman, David J, 1992. "Regression toward Mediocrity in Economic Stature," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 409-429, June.
    29. Dwayne Benjamin & Loren Brandt & John Giles, 2011. "Did Higher Inequality Impede Growth in Rural China?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(557), pages 1281-1309, December.
    30. Lena Lindahl, 2008. "Do birth order and family size matter for intergenerational income mobility? Evidence from Sweden," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(17), pages 2239-2257.
    31. Jan Van Bavel & Sarah Moreels & Bart Van de Putte & Koen Matthijs, 2011. "Family size and intergenerational social mobility during the fertility transition," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 24(14), pages 313-344.
    32. Liang, Yun & Gibson, John, 2018. "Do siblings take your food away? Using China's one-child policy to test for child quantity-quality trade-offs," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 14-26.
    33. Debopam Bhattacharya & Bhashkar Mazumder, 2011. "A nonparametric analysis of black–white differences in intergenerational income mobility in the United States," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 2(3), pages 335-379, November.
    34. Raj Chetty & Nathaniel Hendren & Patrick Kline & Emmanuel Saez, 2014. "Where is the land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1553-1623.
    35. Grawe, Nathan D., 2006. "Lifecycle bias in estimates of intergenerational earnings persistence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 551-570, October.
    36. Pekkarinen, Tuomas & Uusitalo, Roope & Kerr, Sari, 2009. "School tracking and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from the Finnish comprehensive school reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 965-973, August.
    37. Chul-In Lee & Gary Solon, 2009. "Trends in Intergenerational Income Mobility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(4), pages 766-772, November.
    38. Avraham Ebenstein & Steven Leung, 2010. "Son Preference and Access to Social Insurance: Evidence from China's Rural Pension Program," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 36(1), pages 47-70, March.
    39. Aydemir, Abdurrahman B. & Yazici, Hakki, 2019. "Intergenerational education mobility and the level of development," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 160-185.
    40. Alain-Désiré Nimubona & Désiré Vencatachellum, 2007. "Intergenerational education mobility of black and white South Africans," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(1), pages 149-182, February.
    41. Ming-Hsuan Lee, 2012. "The One-Child Policy and Gender Equality in Education in China: Evidence from Household Data," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 41-52, March.
    42. Li, Bingjing & Zhang, Hongliang, 2017. "Does population control lead to better child quality? Evidence from China’s one-child policy enforcement," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 246-260.
    43. Matias D. Cattaneo & Nicolas Idrobo & Rocio Titiunik, 2019. "A Practical Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs: Foundations," Papers 1911.09511, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Christina D'Addio, 2007. "Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 52, OECD Publishing.
    2. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    3. Lijie Song, 2021. "Does Public Investment Promote Intergenerational Mobility? Who Really Benefits?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 59-80, November.
    4. Shu Wang & Xiao Yu & Kuo Zhang & Jipeng Pei & Karlis Rokpelnis & Xuelong Wang, 2022. "How does education affect intergenerational income mobility in Chinese society?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 774-792, May.
    5. Robert Lucas & Sari Kerr, 2013. "Intergenerational income immobility in Finland: contrasting roles for parental earnings and family income," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(3), pages 1057-1094, July.
    6. Galassi, Gabriela & Koll, David & Mayr, Lukas, 2019. "The Intergenerational Correlation of Employment: Is There a Role for Work Culture?," IZA Discussion Papers 12595, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Gabriela Galassi & David Koll & Lukas Mayr, 2019. "The Intergenerational Correlation of Employment: Is There a Role for Work Culture?," Staff Working Papers 19-33, Bank of Canada.
    8. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility in the United States: What We Have Learned from the PSID," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 213-234, November.
    9. Doan, Quang Hung & Nguyen, Ngoc Anh, 2016. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 70603, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Chelsea Murray & Robert Graham Clark & Silvia Mendolia & Peter Siminski, 2018. "Direct Measures of Intergenerational Income Mobility for Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 94(307), pages 445-468, December.
    11. Florencia Torche, 2015. "Analyses of Intergenerational Mobility," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 657(1), pages 37-62, January.
    12. Javier Cortes Orihuela & Juan D. Díaz & Pablo Gutiérrez Cubillos & Pablo A. Troncoso, 2024. "Everything’s not lost: revisiting TSTSLS estimates of intergenerational mobility in developing countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(1), pages 66-94, February.
    13. Michelle M. Miller & Frank McIntyre, 2020. "Does Money Matter for Intergenerational Income Transmission?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(3), pages 941-970, January.
    14. Coban, Mustafa & Sauerhammer, Sarah, 2017. "Transmission channels of intergenerational income mobility: Empirical evidence from Germany and the Unites States," Discussion Paper Series 138, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    15. Chen, Wen-Hao & Ostrovsky, Yuri & Piraino, Patrizio, 2017. "Lifecycle variation, errors-in-variables bias and nonlinearities in intergenerational income transmission: new evidence from Canada," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 1-12.
    16. Daniel D. Schnitzlein, 2016. "A New Look at Intergenerational Mobility in Germany Compared to the U.S," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(4), pages 650-667, December.
    17. Huang, Xiao & Huang, Shoujun & Shui, Ailun, 2021. "Government spending and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 387-414.
    18. Zhang, Xinmiao & Deguilhem, Thibaud, 2022. "Climbing the Social Ladder: Does Intergenerational Solidarity matter?," MPRA Paper 115241, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Tang, Le & Sun, Shiyu & Yang, Weiguo, 2021. "Does government education expenditure boost intergenerational mobility? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 13-22.
    20. Nizam MelikÅŸah Demirtas & Orhan Torul, 2021. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in Turkey Abstract:," Working Papers 2021/05, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:165:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s11205-022-03013-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.