Parity Progression and Birth Intervals in China: The Influence of Policy in Hastening Fertility Decline

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Citation: Feeney, G., Wang, F. Parity Progression and Birth Intervals in China: The Influence of Policy in Hastening Fertility Decline.
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Parity Progression and Birth Intervals in China: The Influence of Policy in Hastening Fertility Decline
Tagged: uw-madison (RSS), wisconsin (RSS), sociology (RSS), demography (RSS), prelim (RSS), qual (RSS), WisconsinDemographyPrelimAugust2009 (RSS)

Summary

This article analyzes parity progression and birth interval statistics in relation to the Chinese government's birth planning policies. The data are from China's 1982 and 1988 two-per-thousand survey. We present and analyze annual time series of statistics on age at marriage and proportions marrying and on marital fertility at the national level and for women living in cities, towns, and counties. Data is analyzed for four provinces: Jilin, Shaanxi, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. The distinction between cities and towns (urban areas) on the one hand and counties (rural areas) on the other is important for understanding fertility, because those living in urban areas are guaranteed employment, housing, and food subsidies by the government. Therefore, withdrawal of benefits provides a potent tool for enforcing birth planning. Mean age at marriage is very responsive to governmental policy, rising rapidly in response to the institution of government policy to raise the age at marriage and declining quickly again when the policy is changed to the one-child policy. When the annual time series of TFRs in China is disaggregated into period progression ratios and mean birth intervals, the impact of particular policies, campaigns, and relaxations becomes glaringly apparent. The changes are sudden, large, and clearly timed that they provide nearly overwhelming evidence of the effect of the later-longer-fewer and one-child family policies. Results exist at the national level and are confirmed and further highlighted by results for cities, town, and counties, and by the results for the four provinces. However, these policies have also had limitations. The original intent is most closely approximated in cities, but is not necessarily achieved in the country as a whole. Despite China's one-child policy, given childbearing behavior in the 1980s, less than ? of all families will have only one child. Nearly half of all women who had a second child went on to have a third child, while over a third of those who had a third went on to have a fourth. Overall, however, the population programs instituted by the Chinese government have been more successful than anyone would have predicted. The TFR for China declined from 6.0 children per woman in 1970 to replacement level in a mere twenty years.