IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04093817.html

Spillovers in Childbearing Decisions and Fertility Transitions: Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Pauline Rossi

    (X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris, CREST - Centre de Recherche en Économie et Statistique - ENSAI - Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Analyse de l'Information [Bruz] - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - X - École polytechnique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique - Groupe ENSAE-ENSAI - Groupe des Écoles Nationales d'Économie et Statistique - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research)

  • Yun Xiao

    (GU - Göteborgs Universitet = University of Gothenburg)

Abstract

This article uses China's family planning policies to quantify and explain spillovers in fertility decisions. We test whether ethnic minorities decreased their fertility in response to the policies, although only the majority ethnic group, the Han Chinese, were subject to birth quotas. We exploit the policy rollout and variation in pre-policy age-specific fertility levels to construct a measure of the negative shock to Han fertility. Combining this measure with variation in the local share of Han, we estimate that a woman gives birth to 0.63 fewer children if the average completed fertility among her peers is exogenously reduced by one child. The fertility response of minorities is driven by cultural proximity with the Han and by higher educational investments, suggesting that spillovers operate through both social and economic channels. These results provide evidence that social multipliers can accelerate fertility transitions.

Suggested Citation

  • Pauline Rossi & Yun Xiao, 2023. "Spillovers in Childbearing Decisions and Fertility Transitions: Evidence from China," Post-Print hal-04093817, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04093817
    DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvad025
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Rao, Ziwei & Zhang, Yi, 2024. "Rely on children or work longer? The impact of fertility and child gender on old-age labor supply," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    2. Hongbin Li & Xinzheng Shi, 2025. "The effect of the one-child policy on fertility in China: identification based on difference-in-differences," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 38(1), pages 1-31, March.
    3. Maria De Paola & Roberto Nisticò & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2024. "Workplace Peer Effects in Fertility Decisions," CSEF Working Papers 714, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy, revised 01 Sep 2025.
    4. Seung‐Hun Chung & Ahmad Shah Mobariz, 2025. "Harmony in diplomacy, convergence in choices: Low fertility diffusion through Sino‐Korean normalization," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 91(3), pages 1048-1068, January.
    5. Brainerd, Elizabeth & Malkova, Olga, 2025. "How Religion Mediates the Fertility Response to Maternity Benefits," IZA Discussion Papers 18081, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Lukas Mahler & Michéle Tertilt & Minchul Yum, 2025. "Policy Concerns in an Era of Low Fertility: The Role of Social Comparisons and Intensive Parenting," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2025_705, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    7. Ang, Geer & Tan, Ya & Zhai, Yingjia & Zhang, Fan & Zhang, Qinghua, 2024. "Housing wealth, fertility and children's health in China: A regression discontinuity design," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    8. Shenglong Liu & Yuanyuan Wan & Shengxiang Xie & Xiaoming Zhang, 2025. "More Access, More Competition: Unintended Consequences of Public Education Expansion in China," Working Papers tecipa-812, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    9. Anqi LI & Shiko MARUYAMA & Yangyang ZHANG, 2026. "When the Last Big Arrow Was Loosed: How the One-Child Policy relaxations reshaped fertility trends in China," Discussion papers 26001, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C36 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East

    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:hal:journl:hal-04093817. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.