The timing of first marriage and subsequent life outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment

We study the consequences of later marriage on subsequent life outcomes. China’s family planning policies in the early 1970s – before the One-Child Policy – regulated not only childbirth but also marriage. The recommended minimum marriage age of 25 years for men and 23 years for women was effectively relaxed when the government formally introduced the One-Child Policy and put greater emphasis on directly controlling fertility rather than marriage. Subsequently, we find that the marriage age, which had been increasing steadily since 1970, suddenly started to decline in the early 1980s. This policy shift provides us with an opportunity to apply a regression probability jump and kink design for the purpose of identification. Using data from the 2000 census, we establish that later-married men have fewer children and that later-married women are more likely to participate in the labor market. We find no consistent evidence that later marriage improves education, probably because most Chinese people marry after completing their education.     

现行生育政策研究

现行生育政策最初是在1982年中央11号文件中提出来的。它对于纠正从1978年开始提出并逐渐形成的“一胎化”生育政策的偏差,起到一定的积极作用。但是,在控制人口效果方面,现行生育政策对于抑制农村妇女的早婚早育和多胎生育、调节和疏导我国第三次生育高峰却没有多少实际意义。相反,由于现行生育政策同广大农民的生育意愿之间的差距过大,在长期执行过程中一直在给农民造成巨大的伤害,所以,迅速改变现行生育政策,彻底纠正“一胎化”生育政策给社会稳定带来的隐患,是一件刻不容缓的事情。     

Social norms and the fertility transition

This paper provides a norm-based explanation for two features of the fertility transition that have been observed in many different settings: the slow response to external interventions and the wide variation in the response to the same intervention. Most societies have traditionally put norms into place to regulate fertility. When the economic environment changes, individuals gradually learn through their social interactions about the new reproductive equilibrium that will emerge in their community. This characterization of the fertility transition as a process of changing social norms is applied to rural Bangladesh, where norms are organized at the level of the religious group and interactions rarely cross religious boundaries. Consistent with the view that changing social norms are driving changes in reproductive behavior in these communities, we find that the individual's contraception decision responds strongly to changes in contraceptive prevalence in her own religious group within the village whereas cross-religion effects are entirely absent. Local changes in reproductive behavior occur independently across religious groups despite the fact that all individuals in the village have access to the same family planning inputs.     

中国城乡居民收入差距主要影响因素及其贡献率研究 ——基于全国31个省份6 937份家庭户问卷调查数据分析

本文基于全国31个省份6 937份家庭问卷调查数据,对我国城乡居民收入差距现状进行了统计测算,运用Mincer收入模型及Oaxaca Ransom分解法对我国城乡收入差距的主要影响因素及其贡献率进行实证分析。研究结果表明：我国城乡居民收入差距较大,基尼系数已超过警戒线;户主个人与家庭基本特征、人力资本、地区差异与城乡差异对居民家庭收入有显著影响;户主文化程度差异对城乡居民收入差距的贡献率最大,城乡二元结构差异、户主个人及家庭基本特征差异对城乡居民收入差距的贡献率较大,而地区差异对城乡居民收入差距的贡献率最小。在此基础上从四个方面提出了缩小城乡居民收入差距的政策建议。     

An Economic Examination of the Post-Transition Fertility Decline in Russia

This article uses longitudinal household data to examine the decline in the Total Fertility Rate in Russia from 2.0 in 1989 to 1.3 in 2001. Using individual and community-level panel data spanning the 1994–2001 era, the decline in household income can account for about a 28% decline in yearly birth propensities amongst married couples. The relationship between educational attainment and fertility appears to have changed markedly in the post-Soviet era. More educated individuals now have greater propensities to bear children than their vocationally educated counterparts within marriage. Female labour force participation is not strongly associated with fertility decisions of married women in the post-Soviet era, and local provisions for children also do not have important effects. These results suggest that improving real family incomes will be more important in raising fertility rates than improving child benefits levels or increasing community childcare provisions.     

长三角地区城乡收入差距现状研究——基于长三角16地级市

选取泰尔系数、加权变异系数、城乡收入比、城乡收入差4个指标变量反映收入差距水平,对三角地区16个地级市2005—2011年间城乡收入差距水平进行实证分析。结果表明:在研究窗内,城乡收入差距绝对值增大但相对值减小,反映出农村居民纯收入的增长率开始高于城镇居民人均可支配收入增长率;泰尔系数、加权变异系数、城乡收入比的变化趋势趋同,总体处于下降趋势,表明城乡收入差距有所改善。根据分析结果,最后给出政策性建议。     

Endogenous gender power,household labor supply and the demographic transition

We present a microeconomic model of the household in which there exists no difference in spousal preferences but childrearing is more time costly for women. Bargaining between the wife and the husband forms the basis of household decisions. Marital bargaining power is determined according to the incomes of the spouses, which in turn help to determine their reservation utility levels outside the marriage. The endogeneity of bargaining power introduces a non-cooperative element to the couples' decision-making problem because both the husbands and the wives take into account how their pre-marital education decisions affect their marital power and the share they extract from household resources in the future. The model predicts that wives invest more than is Pareto efficient in their education in order to increase their bargaining power in marriage. As a consequence, couples have fewer children and consume more when exogenous structural changes lead women to invest more in education. A corollary of the model is that empowering women directly through social reforms such as a lower gender wage gap leads to lower fertility and higher spousal consumption and leisure.     

‘‘Isn't it time you were finishing?’’: Women's Labor Force Participation and Childbearing in England, 1860–1920

Abstract

This contribution examines the relationship between women's labor force participation (LFP) and fertility in three industrial towns of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England from a feminist economic perspective. The study augments existing statistical approaches to demographic history by discussing women's motivations. Women's LFP influenced their likelihood of family limitation (via effects on both age at marriage and marital fertility). Where women were most likely to be in paid work, they were most likely to limit family size. It is further argued that the diversity of LFP patterns is the principal explanation for the varied patterns of fertility decline in different parts of Britain.     

Wealth,Wages, and Wedlock: Explaining the College Gender Gap Reversal

In this paper, I study the role of changes in the wage structure and expectations about marriage in explaining the college gender gap reversal. With strongly diminishing marginal utility of wealth and in the presence of a gender wage gap, single women have a greater incentive than single men to invest in education. Marriage‐market distortions tend to depress the overall benefit of education for women relative to men. I develop a tractable two‐period model and parameterize it using US census data for the cohort born in 1950. I then show that it can generate a reversal and that the most important driving force for this is the decline in marriage rates.     

The influence of rapid rural-urban migration on Korean national fertility levels

A autoregressive model is applied to personal migration and pregnancy histories recorded in the 1974 Korean World Fertility Survey to assess the adaptation effect of rural-urban migration on migrant fertility and national fertility levels. The objective of this study is to provide policy makers in developing nations with a model that will enable them to quantify the effects of rapid urbanization on the fertility level of migrant women and thus on national fertility levels. The fertility of rural-urban migrants is on the average lower than that of rural stayers; this study supports the adaptation hypothesis and indicates that rural-urban migrants experienced a significant reduction in 5 year fertility rates from those of comparable rural stayers after migration to the urban area. In addition, the city specific effects of migration on fertility are of considerable importance; migrants to larger cities adapt more over their lifetime than migrants to smaller cities. The completed adaptation by postmarital, rural-urban migrants is largest among migrants who are least educated. The autoregressive model controls the fertility level at the beginning of the observed period; it is assumed that this is a proxy for family size preferences. Results show that the completed fertility of migrant women with less than 4 years of school is 1.9 children fewer than that of comparable rural stayers, 1 child fewer for migrant women with 4 to 6 years of school, and .8 children fewer for migrant women with at least 6 years of school. For Korea, the overall effects on national fertility of rural-urban migration represent a reduction of 1.79 births per woman for the 1965-1970 period; it is estimated that the 945,400 rural-urban women migrants of this period would avoid, on average, 71,300 births annually for their expected average 24 years of urban life.     

Population policy: do we need it? Prospects and problems

A 1983 report by the Whitsun Foundation called upon the Government of Zimbabwe to recognize the urgent nature of that country's population problem and to devise and implement a comprehensive population policy aimed at reducing morbidity and mortality among women and children, reducing the population growth rate, and reducing the fertility level. This article challenges the Whitsun Foundation's view that population pressure is the primary cause of poverty in Zimbabwe and that family planning is a feasible remedy. It is argued instead that poverty in Zimbabwe can be traced to capitalist development policies that have removed from rural people the means to produce their own subsistence. More important that large-scale birth control programs are radical structural and institutional changes aimed at achieving social and economic progress and directly attacking poverty, unemployment, and inequality. Those countries where marked declines in birth rates have been achieved have usually been those that spread the benefits of development throughout their populations. Moreover, the Whitsun report implies that there is no family planning program in Zimbabwe. In fact, in 1982, an estimated 200,000 people received contraception through the Child Spacing and Fertility Association of Zimbabwe's program. It is unlikely that an expanded birth control program and educational campaign to persuade the rural and urban poor to practice family planning will be effective. Policy makers will have to address the cynicism brought about by the colonial regimes' genocidal efforts in the 1960s and 1970s to introduce birth control measures.     

How will fertility imbalances affect the human capital structure in China? Evidence from the National Family Planning and Fertility Health Survey

Using the National Family Planning and Fertility Health Survey of 1997 and 2001, we document the preferred fertility level, the actual fertility level and the imbalance between these two for Chinese women. We further study the associations of these outcomes with human capital structure measured by education levels and try to explore the mechanisms behind these associations. The main finding is that there exists severe fertility imbalance in China, and the direction of imbalance is opposite in urban and rural regions. Education plays an important role in determining such imbalance even taking into account other socioeconomic factors. In addition, we find evidence showing that besides economic factors, institutional factors such as the family planning policy may have contributed to the fertility imbalance and the role of education.     

大城市边缘区城乡多维空间冲突特征与形成机制——以韶关市转溪村为例

大城市边缘区作为城乡功能过渡与要素交汇区,经济社会持续演变,空间冲突日趋激烈,生态文明与城乡共同繁荣语境下加强空间冲突与协调研究具有重要意义。选取典型案例韶关市转溪村,主要采用2008与2018年土地利用数据、2018年问卷调研数据和环境抽样检测数据,从用地空间、经济社会与生态环境等维度,解析大城市边缘区城乡空间冲突特征及成因机制,提出城乡统筹与空间协调发展路径。研究表明:(1)研究区用地变化与冲突明显,城镇用地快速增长,侵占优质区位,农村用地空间明显缩减,生态位不断缩窄。2018年村域建设用地中城镇用地占比高达60.79%。(2)城乡经济差距与冲突显著,外来企业带动作用小,村庄经济发展滞后,城乡收入和公共服务差距大。转溪村人均收入仅为曲江区农村平均水平的50.94%,村民对公共服务满意度低。(3)城市工业等企业嵌入,导致不同程度的大气污染、噪声污染和水污染,61.37%的受访村民认为外来企业破坏环境或干扰生活。(4)城乡空间冲突是多维冲突的交织复合体,主要受城乡地域功能分工、乡村多元价值认知、空间组织与统筹治理、城乡协同发展制度供给等因素影响。(5)应基于生态文明进行功能协调,促进城乡等值发展。基于城乡统筹开展空间重构,优化三生空间治理。基于共同繁荣建立协同机制,保障乡村发展权益。     

Population growth and economic and social development

This article sets forth 3 positions on population growth: 1) rapid population growth is a central development problem that implies lower living standards for the poor; 2) proposals for reducing population growth raise difficult questions about the proper domain of public policy, yet it is acceptable for governments to attempt to influence private decisions about family size; and 3) the experience in many developing countries shows that quick, effective measures can be taken to reduce fertility. Rapid population growth has slowed development because it exacerbates the difficult choice between higher consumption in the present and the investment needed to bring higher consumption in the future. As populations grow, larger investments are needed just to maintain current capital/person. It further threatens the balance between natural resources and people and creates severe economic and social problems in urban areas. Public policy must provide alternative ways for poor families to secure the benefits provided by large family size. That is, governments need to provide tangible evidence that it really is in the best interests of parents to have fewer children. Also required is greater infomation about and access to fertility control. When family planning services have been widespread and affordable, fertility has decline faster than social and economic progress alone would predict. There is a need for immediate action to improve women's status and to make education, family planning, and primary health care more available. Although economic and social progress help to slow population growth, rapid population growth hinders development. Thus, governments must act simultaneously on both fronts. Accumulating evidence on population growth in developing countries shows that is the combination of social development and family planning that reduces fertility.     

Interrelations between duration of residence and fertility in a Nigerian primate city

Data were taken from a 1974-75 survey of female employment and the small family ideal in Surulere, Ebute-Metta and Yaba in Lagos, Nigeria, to critically examine the duration of residence as a correlate of fertility behavior. It was taken into account that migrants and nonmigrants may have other attributes that may affect their fertility levels other than migrant status. Thus, education and age were controlled for in the cross tabulation of duration of residence with fertility of mothers with different migrant statuses. In a multivariate analysis, in addition to education and age, factors also controlled for were husband's education and income, age at 1st marriage, migration, and employment status. The data had been collected via a probability random sampling of women currently married in the 15-49 age group. The total sample for this study was 1801 respondents; only mothers with at least 1 child were included. The comparison for nonmigrants by varying duration of residence in Lagos was not possible, but for migrants from both Western and Eastern states fertility of recent migrants was considerably lower than that of migrants with longer length of residence in Lagos as well as for that of nonmigrants and 2nd or more generation migrants. The expected high fertility of recent migrants, which should decline gradually as the duration of residence increases according to the principle of assimilation process, was found. In fact, the fertility of migrants from both the Western and Eastern states whose duration of residence had been 25 or more years was the highest. The fertility of the 2nd or more generation migrants assumed that of the native born. The examination of correlates of fertility through the ordinary least square regression showed that the inverse relationship of education of fertility becomes operational only with secondary education or more. The pattern was the same when husband's education was examined. The assumption that fertility increases as one moves further away from the primate city located along the coast was confirmed. Women in employee status had lower fertility than women who were self-employed, but full-time housewives also had lower fertility than those who were self-employed. In contrast to the findings in more developed economies in which education correlates with income and this in turn correlates inversely with fertility, the findings confirmed that income was positively related to fertility. The implication of the findings is that migrants, in terms of reproductive behavior, still retain ties with their places of origin irrespective of the duration of residence in their place of destination.     

Inequality in Vietnamese Urban–Rural Living Standards, 1993–2006

We investigate urban–rural inequality in Vietnam using data from the Vietnam Living Standard Surveys between 1993 and 2006. We find that mean per capita expenditure of urban households is consistently twice as much as that of rural households and that the urban–rural gap monotonically increases from the poorer to the richer groups of the expenditure distribution. To isolate factors contributing to the urban–rural gap, we apply the Oaxaca–Blinder type decomposition to a newly developed unconditional quantile regression method. Factors contributing significantly to the high urban–rural gap include inter‐group differences in education, household age structure, labor market activity, geographic location and their related returns, with education playing the most important role. Over the period, consistent with the country's massive rural–urban migration, we find that domestic remittance plays a significant role in shortening the urban–rural expenditure gap in the later years, 2002 and 2006.     

Human resources in China: the birth quota, returns to schooling, and migration

Abstract. The rural elderly in China have 40% of the income of the urban elderly, spend a larger share of their income on food, are in worse health, work later into their lives and depend more on their children, lacking pensions and public services. The birth quota since 1980 has particularly restricted the childbearing of rural, less educated, women, who therefore have fewer children to rely on for support. This inequality is reinforced by increasing returns to schooling, especially beyond secondary school. Government restrictions on rural–urban migration reduces national efficiency, adds to the urban–rural wage gap and increases inequality.     

DOES CONTRACEPTION BENEFIT WOMEN? STRUCTURE,AGENCY, AND WELL-BEING IN RURAL MEXICO

The authors of this paper examine Amartya Sen's contributions to the concept of human well-being from a gender perspective and argue that this concept is particularly useful for explaining women's decisions on contraceptive use. The study draws on data collected in six rural communities of Chiapas, Mexico. It emphasizes the ways in which public discourse articulates the apparent benefits of having small families; the context of the household and community in which rural women make reproductive decisions; and the impact of family planning programs on women's sense of subjective well-being. In particular, it questions the assumption that reduced fertility through contraception necessarily enhances women's well-being and points to the importance that women attach to being a party to reproductive decisions. The authors also explore the links between women's assessment of these decisions and of paid work, and their actual education levels and real possibilities of employment.     

Women with large families: a sociodemographic analysis

Results of a 1976 sample survey of 1616 mothers of 4 or more children in Tashkent are presented. The high natural increase of the Central Asian populations will largely determine the dynamics of Soviet population growth for the foreseeable future. For indigenous Central Asian families, having many children is an expression of the traditions of the ethnic community, which are highly conservative and change only under the direct impact of socioeconomic conditions. More than 1/2 the surveyed mothers were under 40. No substantial differences were noted in the average number of children among mothers of large families with different educational levels. 19.2% of mothers of large families have specialized secondary education or above. The average number of children of mothers of large families with a higher education is close to that of groups with no specialized education and of the whole surveyed group. The survey revealed that the average number of children/mother was 5.6 in Tashkent compared to 7.3 in rural areas. 92.5% of the mothers were married and most were still in 1st marriages. 40% had married before age 20 and 81.1% before age 25. The average age at marriage of women declined by 11 years between 1915 and 1954, reflecting socioeconomic changes and a steady rise in material well-being. 53% of the mothers are employed in social production, with employment rate steadily increasing with woman's age. More than 1/3 of nonworking women in the survey reported they wanted to find a job. Only 30.9% of the women had never worked. The employment of most of the surveyed women in low-skilled or unskilled jobs suggests that the quality of the labor force is not high, but the positive aspects fostered by large families such as industriousness and collectivism should also be considered in assessing population quality.     

The gender wage gap among China’s rural–urban migrants

In this study, we present new empirical evidence on gender wage differences among rural–urban migrants in China. We use a data set that includes migrants residing in urban communities and those living at their workplaces—the latter were not included in the previous studies. We find that the gender wage gap among migrants is 16%–18% and does not differ between migrants living at workplaces and those living in urban communities. However, gender differences in industry sorting play a more important role for migrants living at their workplaces, whereas differences in education and experience are of importance for those living in urban communities. Overall, differences in the returns to characteristics are the main driver of the gender wage gap, especially for migrants living in urban communities.