Educational competition and reduced family size in China

Background: The economic burden of educational competition is widely recognized. However, its potential correlation with family size remains largely unexplored, particularly how this correlation varies across birth parities and is associated with declining fertility rates. Objective: We investigate how the intensity of educational competition is associated with fertility outcomes at the household level, using China as a case study. Particular attention is paid to the heterogeneous correlations across different socioeconomic groups and the broader implications for fertility trends and inequality in low-fertility settings. Methods: We measure the number of private tutoring centers near schools as a proxy for educational competition intensity. We examine the relationship between local educational competition and the number of younger siblings among surveyed students. Results: Results indicate that having one or more tutoring centers within 800 meters of a school is associated with a 0.04-child reduction in the number of younger siblings, with this correlation being most prominent among low- and middle-income families. Conclusions: Excessive educational competition may ultimately undermine population reproduction on a societal scale. East Asian societies such as China provide empirical evidence for this phenomenon. Contribution: Our study extends the quantity–quality trade-off framework by showing that resource constraints associated with family size are correlated not only with household dynamics but also with broader societal competition.