Culture, fertility and the socioeconomic status of women

Abstract

This paper aims to study the effect of culture on economic outcomes by focusing on one unique fertility norm in China: the belief of continuing the family line. Using the national representative household survey data, we successively examine the fertility behavior and socioeconomic status of women in regions of China with varying beliefs regarding continuing the family line. We show that this local fertility norm has positive and significant effects on the fertility behavior, including the number of births; sex selection biased towards boys; and the education, employment status, and income of women. We also show that the gender gaps in education, labor supply, and income are significantly larger in regions where the belief of continuing the family line is stronger. Our results are robust to the control for reverse causality issue by measuring the local fertility norm using the beliefs of the older generation.