Abstract
As the world’s largest population, the total fertility rate (TFR) of China is of global significance. Furthermore, the introduction of recent reforms designed to lessen restrictions on childbearing have received wide attention. As well as outlining the fertility rate in China as derived from the 2015 1% sample census, in this short paper we seek to explore the impact of the 2013 reforms to fertility policy which allowed millions of eligible couples to bear a second child. We performed standard demographic analysis on the 2015 1% sample census to calculate both TFR and parity-specific fertility rates for both the total population and specific sub-groups. The overall national TFR from the census was calculated to be 1.047 (down from 1.188 in 2010). TFR in urban areas was 0.914 compared to 1.265 in rural areas. TFR among migrant women was 0.896 compared to 1.115 for non-migrants. While a modest increase in second-births can be identified, a decline in first birth rates offsets it. Even allowing for a generous margin of error, China’s fertility rates appear to be extremely low and declining further. The impact of the recent reforms appears muted, especially in the face of declining first birth rates. The TFRs as calculated from the mini-census would be the lowest national rates in the world. Further research is required to triangulate these findings from other sources. The impact of the two-child policy may be muted.
Highlights
Many studies have comprehensively appraised various aspects of China’s recent demographic history and outlook (Basten and Jiang 2014, 2015; Cai 2012; among others)
We produced a simple analysis of the 2015 mini-census of China without any statistical manipulation
Given the recent decision by the National Bureau of Statistics to cease publishing age-specific fertility rates, this data source represents one of the few means to calculate national and disaggregated measures of fertility in contemporary China
Summary
Many studies have comprehensively appraised various aspects of China’s recent demographic history and outlook (Basten and Jiang 2014, 2015; Cai 2012; among others). Using the 2010 census data, Guo (2011) reconstructed fertility patterns for China from 1990 to 2010 These figures tracked closely the TFRs derived from the National Bureau of Statistics’ Annual Sample Surveys on Population Change. That among the estimated more than 11 million couples who were eligible to have a second child under the new rule, only 1.69 million had applied as of August 2015, accounting for 15.4% of such couples While this again, is too soon to denote evidence of the potential impact of the Two-child Policy, it is possible to use the data to both calculate national level fertility rates as well as parity-specific fertility rates. This can be closely tied to the postponement of marriage (which we will return to shortly)
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