China's ?later? marriage policy and its demographic consequences

Abstract

Using data from China's One-Per-Thousand Fertility Survey conducted in 1982, a cohort analysis is carried out to estimate the demographic consequences of the ‘later’ marriage policy implemented in the People's Republic of China. The findings show that the ‘later’ marriage policy had a strong positive effect on mean age at first marriage and first birth but a negative impact on the length of the first-birth interval, suggesting that the depressing effects on fertility of the administratively enforced postponement of marriage are more or less offset by adjustments over the first-birth interval by Chinese couples.