IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/uwp/landec/v82y2006i1p36-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Secure Land Use Rights Reduce Fertility? The Case of Meitan County in China

Author

Listed:
  • James Kai-sing Kung

Abstract

Based on the belief that collective landownership is pro-natalist, the Chinese government experimented in a remote southwestern county (Meitan) in 1987 with the practice of freezing land reallocations in response to demographic change for twenty years. Premising on the norm of a two-children family in rural China, evidence suggests that demand for the third child is attributable to strong son preference. Neither secured land rights nor family planning policy can curb such a proclivity. The experiment has, however, stimulated an active land rental market, which may have long-term profound implications for the development of private land rights and fertility behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • James Kai-sing Kung, 2006. "Do Secure Land Use Rights Reduce Fertility? The Case of Meitan County in China," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 82(1), pages 36-55.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwp:landec:v:82:y:2006:i:1:p:36-55
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://le.uwpress.org/cgi/reprint/82/1/36
    Download Restriction: A subscripton is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available.
    ---><---

    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. Liu, Shouying & Carter, Michael R. & Yao, Yang, 1998. "Dimensions and diversity of property rights in rural China: Dilemmas on the road to further reform," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(10), pages 1789-1806, October.
    2. Schultz, T Paul & Zeng, Yi, 1995. "Fertility of Rural China: Effects of Local Family Planning and Health Programs," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 8(4), pages 329-350, November.
    3. Ahn, Namkee, 1994. "Effects of the One-Child Family Policy on Second and Third Births in Hebei, Shaanxi and Shanghai," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 63-78.
    4. Lucia Breierova & Esther Duflo, 2003. "The Impact of Education on Fertility and Child Mortality: Do Fathers Really Matter Less Than Mothers?," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 217, OECD Publishing.
    5. Kung, James Kaising, 1994. "Egalitarianism, subsistence provision, and work incentives in China's agricultural collectives," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 175-187, February.
    6. Guo Li & Scott Rozelle & Loren Brandt, 1998. "Tenure, land rights, and farmer investment incentives in China," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 19(1-2), pages 63-71, September.
    7. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226740867 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Barmby, T & Cigno, A, 1990. "A Sequential Probability Model of Fertility Patterns," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 3(1), pages 31-51, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jianyun Hou & Xuexi Huo & Runsheng Yin, 2017. "Land Rental Market Participation and Its Impact on Fixed Investment and Household Welfare: Evidence from Chinese Apple Production Sites," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-15, October.
    2. Jin, Songqing & Deininger, Klaus, 2009. "Land rental markets in the process of rural structural transformation: Productivity and equity impacts from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 629-646, December.
    3. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing & Xia, Fang & Huang, Jikun, 2014. "Moving Off the Farm: Land Institutions to Facilitate Structural Transformation and Agricultural Productivity Growth in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 505-520.
    4. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing, 2007. "Land rental markets in the process of rural structural transformation : productivity and equity impacts in China," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4454, The World Bank.
    5. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing, 2009. "Securing property rights in transition: Lessons from implementation of China's rural land contracting law," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 22-38, May.

    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. Ying Bai & James Kung & Yang Zhao, 2014. "How Much Expropriation Hazard Is Too Much? The Effect of Land Reallocation on Organic Fertilizer Usage in Rural China," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 90(3), pages 434-457.
    2. Jia, Lili, 2012. "Land fragmentation and off-farm labor supply in China," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 66, number 66.
    3. Jia, Lili & Petrick, Martin, 2014. "How does land fragmentation affect off-farm labor supply: panel data evidence from China," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 45(3), pages 369-380.
    4. Carter, Michael R. & Yang Yao, 1999. "Market versus administrative reallocation of agricultural land in a period of rapid industrialization," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2203, The World Bank.
    5. Zhang, Yanjie & Wang, Xiaobing, 2009. "Land Reallocation and Its Impacts on Technical Efficiency --Evidence from China’s Agricultural Production," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51954, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Grosjean, Pauline & Kontoleon, Andreas, 2009. "How Sustainable are Sustainable Development Programs? The Case of the Sloping Land Conversion Program in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 268-285, January.
    7. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing & Xia, Fang & Huang, Jikun, 2014. "Moving Off the Farm: Land Institutions to Facilitate Structural Transformation and Agricultural Productivity Growth in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 505-520.
    8. Qin, Ping & Carlsson, Fredrik & Xu, Jinato, 2008. "Forestland Reform in China: What Do the Farmers Want? A Choice Experiment in Farmers’ Property Rights Preferences," RFF Working Paper Series dp-08-35-rev-efd, Resources for the Future.
    9. Liu, Shouying & Ma, Sen & Yin, Lijuan & Zhu, Jiong, 2023. "Land titling, human capital misallocation, and agricultural productivity in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    10. Deininger, Klaus W. & Mpuga, Paul, 2003. "Land Markets In Uganda: Incidence, Impact And Evolution Over Time," 2003 Annual Meeting, August 16-22, 2003, Durban, South Africa 25809, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    11. Carter, Michael R. & Yang Yao, 1999. "Specialization without regret - transfer rights, agricultural productivity, and investment in an industrializing economy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2202, The World Bank.
    12. Derek G. Stacey, 2011. "Tenure Insecurity, Adverse Selection, And Liquidity In Rural Land Markets," Working Paper 1269, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    13. Yi Chen & Hanming Fang, 2018. "The Long-Term Consequences of Having Fewer Children in Old Age: Evidence from China’s “Later, Longer, Fewer” Campaign," NBER Working Papers 25041, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Yang Yao, 2004. "Land Tenure Choice in Chinese Villages: The Rational versus the Political Model," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 80(4).
    15. Kuhn, Britta & Neusius, Thomas, 2022. "Will China's three-child policy defuse the demographic time bomb?," wifin Working Paper Series 14/2022, RheinMain University of Applied Sciences, Wiesbaden Institute of Finance and Insurance (wifin).
    16. Chen, Yi & Huang, Yingfei, 2018. "The Power of the Government: China's Family Planning Leading. Group and the Fertility Decline since 1970," GLO Discussion Paper Series 204, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    17. Lanchih Po, 2011. "Property Rights Reforms and Changing Grassroots Governance in China’s Urban—Rural Peripheries: The Case of Changping District in Beijing," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(3), pages 509-528, February.
    18. Deininger, Klaus & Jin, Songqing, 2005. "The potential of land rental markets in the process of economic development: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 241-270, October.
    19. Kung, James Kai-sing & Shimokawa, Satoru, 2012. "Land Reallocations, Passive Land Rental, and the Development of Rental Markets in Rural China," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 125099, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    20. Kung, James Kai-sing, 2000. "Common Property Rights and Land Reallocations in Rural China: Evidence from a Village Survey," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 701-719, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:uwp:landec:v:82:y:2006:i:1:p:36-55. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://le.uwpress.org/ .

    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.