Women's Education and Fertility in China

Zheyuan Zhang () and Zhong Zhao
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Zheyuan Zhang: Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing

No 15857, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, this paper exploits the Compulsory Education Law of China implemented in the 1980s to empirically examine the causal impact of women's education on fertility in rural China by difference-in-differences methods. The results show that an additional year of schooling lowered the number of children a woman would have by approximately 0.09 children, postponed the age of first childbirth by 0.7 years, and reduced the probability of having a second child or more children by 0.18 among those mothers whose first child was a girl. In addition to the income effect, these results are also partly explained by more educated women preferring quality to quantity of children, placing a greater value on leisure and no longer perceiving children as the sole focus in their lives.

Keywords: compulsory education law; demographic transition; fertility; women's education; quality and quantity of children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 J11 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2023-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-dev, nep-edu and nep-lab
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Published - published in: China Economic Review , 2023, 78, 101936

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Journal Article: Women's education and fertility in China (2023)
Working Paper: Women's Education and Fertility in China (2023)
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