Income and Other Factors Influencing Fertility in China

Abstract

China has achieved remarkable success in increasing life expectancy and reducing fertility. There is no question that much of this success is due to concerted government efforts. Low fertility is in part the outcome of government efforts to raise age at marriage, to provide free contraceptives and abortion, to use local birth quotas and peer pressure to discourage pregnancy, and, increasingl, to provide economic incentives and disincentives. The paper presents evidence, however, that government programs, although important, have not operated in a vacuum. It has data on rates of population increase for the 29 administrative regions of China and on income and other socioeconomic indicators for those regions. It also has data on yearly vital rates since 1972 by prefecture for one province, and income data and vital rate data (the latter for two seperate years) by county for another. These data allows the paper to considerations of several important questions regarding future population policy in China. The paper's principal concern is whether future economic growth and liberalization can be expected to reinforce government programs to reduce fertility, or whether these developments might weaken policies that have contributed to an already low level of fertility.