“开放”与“解放”?--基于中国出口增长与女性婚育表现的实证考察

对外开放与出口高速增长,在推动中国经济转型与发展的同时,也深刻影响着中国的社会.结构,重塑着中国社会发展的样貌和轨迹。本文利用地区间产业结构的差异,刻画出中国出口增长对不同地区劳动市场需求的差异性影响,进而实证考察了出口增长通过国内劳动市场对女性结婚和生育表现的影响。研究.发现,中国出口增长显著提高了20~39岁适婚女性群体的单身比例,降低了这一女性群体中选择生育的比例;并且,出口增长对女性推迟结婚和生育的影响,与对女性就业的影响密切相关。本文从社会性别角色和人口转型的视角,为中国对外开放和出口增长的深层社会影响提供了一个新的考察,也在经.济开放的情境下检验了经典婚姻家庭经济学的理论逻辑。

From Liberalization to Liberation?The Impact of China’s Export Growth on Women’s Marriage and Childbearing

China’s rapid export growth promotes great economic transformation and reshapes the structure of society.This paper aims to identify the causal effects of China’s export growth on women’s marriage and childbearing through the local labor market by exploiting the variation in the industrial structure at the prefecture level.We also construct an instrumental variable based on external demand to overcome the potential endogeneity problem.We find that China’s export growth has significantly increased the proportion of unmarried women aged 20-39 and reduced the proportion of them who choose to bear at least one child.This paper sheds new light on the social impacts of China’s export growth from the perspectives of gender roles and demographic transition and also tests the economics of marriage and family in the context of China’s opening-up.