生育激励与个人所得税 ——理论逻辑与经验论据

中共十九大报告提出要进一步“促进生育政策和相关经济社会政策配套衔接”。在厘清税收激励生育的理论逻辑基础上,运用工资税模型,获取OECD国家对此的经验论据。结果显示,许多国家运用税收政策向有子女家庭提供正向激励,且更注重中低收入家庭。进一步分析发现,通常为符合资格条件的儿童设计相同的或递增的定额税收优惠,甚至为大规模家庭赋予额外优惠;将儿童税收宽免转化为抵免,引进收入限制和可退抵免制;单亲家庭可享受额外优惠,而已婚家庭还通过个人申报纳税、婚姻优惠、家庭申报纳税等多种举措受益。应汲取和借鉴OECD国家的成功经验,逐步构建我国“生育友好型”的税收制度。     

Savings/credit group formation and change in contraception

We examine the characteristics of women who chose to join a women's savings or credit group organized by Save the Children USA in a rural area of Bangladesh, and the impact of participation on contraceptive use. The data are taken from a panel survey conducted in 1993, shortly before the groups were formed, and in 1995 after interventions began. Our findings show that although demographic and socioeconomic characteristics have only a weak relationship to the decision to join a program, the treatment that a woman receives from her husband is associated with participation. We also find evidence that the credit program tends to attract women who are already using contraception. The analysis of program impact on the use of modern contraceptives reveals a positive effect of the credit program, after we adjust for this selectivity; we see no evidence of an effect of participation in a savings group.     

We must complete the population control system to control the population peak and achieve our population goal]

Since 1986, China has experienced another baby boom which is expected to last till 1997. If no effective measure is implemented to check population growth, the population target of around 1.2 billion will not be achieved. The author proposed four population regulation mechanisms that need to be strengthened. First, ideological education needs to be used to change people's perceptions about family size, so that couples would willingly accept small families. Second, financial incentives and penalties need to be used to direct people to regulate their fertility. The incentive and penalty technique directly affect the interests of the family and is likely to produce rapid results. Third, legislation can be used to regulate reproductive behavior, the laws and legislation which restrict social behavior should be utilized for population control purposes. Once legislation on fertility regulation is passed, those who violate the law can be penalized. Furthermore, legislation gives family planning (FP) workers legitimacy in implementing the program and can help avoid disputes in the process of FP program implementation. Fourth, provision of contraception and abortion services is an important mechanism to ensure the realization of the objectives of population growth control. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of contraceptive methods and the acceptance of abortion depends on the research and development of contraceptive technology and on abortion techniques. These fertility regulatory mechanisms have not be adequately established, and their functions have not been fully utilized. The current FP program is hampered by simplistic ideological education, abusive use of incentives and penalties, lack of legislation, and unmet needs in contraceptive development. To achieve the population targets, these mechanisms need to be strengthened.     

Labour migration as a response to relative deprivation

In this paper we define the relative deprivation of a person with income y as an increasing function of the percentage of individuals in the person's reference group whose income is larger than y. We obtain his satisfaction by adding up the marginal utilities of income over the range of income a person possesses. We model migration from one reference group to another as a response to relative deprivation and satisfaction: We say that a strong incentive to migrate exists if relative deprivation decreases while satisfaction rises with migration and that a weak incentive exists if the individual increases or decreases his satisfaction and deprivation at the same time by migrating. We derive conditions under which different incentives, weak or strong, hold for different individuals. We obtain the result that in general the richest individual in a society will not have a strong incentive to migrate but may have a weak incentive to migrate, whereas the poorest individual may have a strong incentive to migrate and also a weak incentive to migrate. Our analysis enables us to explain several perplexing migratory phenomena, identify income inequality as a distinct explanatory variable of migration and establish an incentive to migrate in situations where the utility-social welfare approach does not.This is a revised version of Harvard University Migration and Development Program, Discussion Paper No. 20. We are indebted to an anonymous referee for helpful comments and suggestions.     

Current primary investigation on the view of family planning of Chinese peasants]

The ideal number of children for 850 couples among 10 cities or counties and 20 villages in China were surveyed. Of the 850, only 1 wanted unlimited children, which accounted for 0.12% of the couples. About 33 desired more than 5, which accounted for 3.9%. However, most of the couples, about 81.4%, prefer 2 or 3 children. 3.2% of the couples were happy with 1 child in their life. In China, peasants still want more children because of their economic situation. There is no retirement and health insurance in the countryside, and the major labor force is in field work. Some consider males as better able to keep family heritage intact. Also, there is difference between agricultural and nonagricultural couples. Comparing the percentage of couples who want 2-3 children, 80% in agricultural sector and 92% in nonagricultural sector desired this number. The remainder of the agricultural group desired more than 3 children. Since economic reform started in the countryside in the early 80s, effects on fertility are seen. One is that peasants want more children because of a rising need for labor. On the other hand, many more opportunities are available to change careers and obtain more education, lowering fertility. However, a rise in fertility is predicted as people concentrate more on economic reform and economic development, increasing their need for children.     

The Barangay service point officers: their performance and potentials

The Strengthening BSPO (barangay service point officer) Operations project aims to strengthen the outreach structure at the BSPO level by hastening its attainment of self-sufficiency and making it more responsive to community needs and demands. It has 2 specific objectives: to provide policymakers and managers of the outreach project with a research-based assessment of current organizational procedures, practices, and factors taht hindet the effectiveness od organizations and operations at the BSPO level; and to provide Popcom's decision makers with alternative means for evolving regional and national action plans to improve BSPO operations. This discussion presents the highlights of a 3rd major project report on the "Qualitative Survey Research on BSPOs and BSPO Operations." The report covers the outcome of focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted in 3 selected regions, with resondents consisting of BSPOs, fulltime outreach workers (FTOWs), married couples of reproductive age (MCRA), and barangay captains. 6 priority issues were taken up in the FGDs conducted: selection and recruitment of BSPOs; taining; incentives and awards; perception of roles and functions; functional relationships of BSPOs and other workers; and BSPO associations. The FTOWs considered the following qualities when choosing BSPOs: influence in the community; accessibility to neighbors; approachability and friendliness; respectability in the community; belief in family planning; satisfaction with family planning use; and ability to motivate people. Before starting volunteer work, BSPOs are trained formally for 3 days. While BSPOs recognize the importance of their role in community development, they are hesitant to accept too many tasks. They perceive the replenishment of contraceptive supply to be their primary function. Record keeping, home visits, information dissemination, and motivation are considered secondary. Popcom regional offices have incentive programs meant to cover all BSPOs. There also are incentives for outstanding BSPO performances. The available incentives are not always enough. Some BSPOs experience strained working relationshiops with workers of other agencies. Coordination among the various groups is limited. Experience has shown that the performance of BSPOs in general has not come up to the program's expectations because of improper recruitment practices, inaccurate communication of roles and functions, poor trining, inadequate incentives, and lack of coordination.     

The earned income tax credit and fertility

Government programs designed to provide income safety nets often restrict eligibility to families with children, creating an unintended fertility incentive. This paper considers whether dramatically changing incentives in the earned income tax credit affect fertility rates in the USA. We use birth certificate data spanning the period 1990 to 1999 to test whether expansions in the credit influenced birthrate among targeted families. While economic theory would predict a positive fertility effect of the program for many eligible women, our results indicate that expanding the credit produced only extremely small reductions in higher order fertility among white women.

Separate taxation and married women's labor supply: a comparison of West Germany and Sweden

This paper uses Swedish and German micro data on wages, hours of work and human capital related variables for German and Swedish couples. When separate taxation was introduced in Sweden in 1971, incentives for married women to supply more labor to the market, was an important argument. A comparison with the behavior of German women, who are confronted with the high marginal taxes of split taxation, is a way of evaluating this policy. Effects of the specific tax systems are incorporated in logit analysis or married women's labor force participation. German and Swedish regressions differ significantly. Children are for example a major detering factor for German women's labor force participation but not for Swedish women.I have received helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper from Wim Groot, Christof Helberger, Notburga Ott, Robert J. Willis, participants at the European Society for Population Economics Conference and referees of the Journal of Population Economics, as well as participants of seminars at the Universities of Amsterdam, Aarhus, Frankfurt and Chicago.     

Normative evaluation of tax policies: from households to individuals

We simulate a hypothetical family tax credit on a sample of French couples, using jointly a collective model of labor supply and a tax-benefit calculator. Work behaviors represent here a general concept of “effort,” and hence, individual productivities cannot be assimilated with wage rates. They are retrieved by inversion of the optimal household program under simple assumptions on household preferences and bargaining rules. The calibrated model is used to predict incentive effects of the reform and distributive impacts on individuals and households. The desirability of the reform depends on which of these two welfare units is used for normative evaluation.      

India well prepared for meeting future goals

In India many of the past goals for reduction in birth rates have not been achieved for various reasons, and although contraceptive usage has increased it has not been sufficient to overtake the reduction in death rates. From 1971-80 about 1/2 of the population of the country was subject to a decline in growth rate, and the number of eligible couples using effective contraception was 10.6% in 1971 and 22.7% in 1981 in spite of an increase in the number of such couples. The death rate declined from 27.4 in 1941-51 to 14.8 in 1971-81 with a corresponding increase in life expectancy from 32-52 years. However the growth rate has reached a plateau during 1971-81. Since its inception the Family Welfare Program in India is estimated to have averted 49 million births including 5 million in 1981-82. Future goals are: 1) reduction in birth rate from 35 in 1981 to 21, death rate from 14 to 9 and infant mortality rate from 125 to 60 by the year 2000 along with reductions in maternal mortality and morbidity, and 2) an increase in the percentage of couples protected from 23.6 in 1982 to 60 in 2000, and 3) population size of 950 million by the year 2000 and the commencement of population stabilization leading to a population of about 1200 million by the middle of the 21st century. Future strategies for the promotion of planned parenthood include information, education, and communication programs, incentives and disincentives, involvement of nongovernmental agenices, provision of services and supplies, linkages with other sectors, and monitoring and evaluation activities. Emphasis will be put on interpersonal communication channels to promote the program as a mass movement.     

A discussion of the effect of development of commodity economy on rural fertility trend in the countryside]

A long-term commodity economy in China, according to this report, will help to improve family planning and to decrease the population. The new economic reforms have brought a commodity economy to rural areas of China and the result is an improved level of productivity and a higher standard of living. At this stage in China's economic development, many couples want to have more than 1 child which they could not afford before. This poses a new problem for family planning objectives. As the economy has shifted from a partially self-contained economy to a commodities-based one, more rural inhabitants want more children for the following reasons: 1) the economic system in China is based on the production of individual households (since agriculture in China today is still carried out by manual laborers, the household productivity rate is determined by the number of laborers it can provide); 2) as rural inhabitants have a higher income than before, they are no longer worried about fines; 3) decentralization reduces the governments financial resources and it is unable to follow through with, e.g., promises of 1-child family incentives and bonuses, and welfare. As a result, families do not uphold the family planning objectives. Family planning will eventually overcome these problems, however, through promotion of family planning campaigns and as the commodity economy advances and becomes more thoroughly developed. The author states that China is currently in the midst of an economic transition period which, once over, will see a decrease in the overall population.     

India: orientation camps boost new motivational strategy; group discussion on the social aspects of the family welfare program

About 40,000 orientation camps for influential village leaders were planned to reactivate India's family welfare programme. Each camp averaged 40 participants, and total participation was estimated to be 1.6 million. Emphasis is placed on interpersonal communication and group communication. Special informative and motivational materials; film shows and folk-art programs were provided at the camps. This endeavor has resulted in improving the climate in relation to family planning. Approximately 100,000 community health volunteers are involved in these efforts. A group discussion organized on the family welfare program in September 22, 1979 brought out the following issues: 1) the use of incentives/disincentives in persuading people to accept family planning; 2) predominant factors in the rural areas such as malnutrition which undermine population programs; 3) need for involving voluntary organization in the family welfare program, in addition to creating an awareness of the demographic situation through educational channels; 4) introduction of some insurance schemes for old-age security; 5) approaching family planning programs at the macro level to improve the economic situation, and at micro level to intensify motivational aspects of the program; and 6) more competent handling of the vasectomy program by trained experts.     

Credit programs for the poor and reproductive behavior in low-income countries: Are the reported causal relationships the result of heterogeneity bias?

Group-based lending programs for the poor have drawn much attention recently. As many of these programs target women, an important research question is whether program participation significantly changes reproductive behavior and whether the gender of the participant matters. Using survey data from 87 Bangladeshi villages, we estimate the impact of female and male participation in group-based credit programs on reproductive behavior while attending to issues of self-selection and endogeneity. Wefind no evidence that women s participation in group-based credit programs increases contraceptive use or reduces fertility. Men So participation reduces fertility and may slightly increase contraceptive use.     

Basic policies of the Philippine Population Program

This history of the Philippine Population Commission, which was created in 1969, is summarized. In 1970 President F.E. Marcos defined the government's task in this area as: 1) educating the people on the urgent need for population control; 2) disseminating knowledge on birth control techniques; and 3) providing facilities, especially in rural areas. Funding began in 1971. The 4 basic policies are noncoercion, integration, multiagency participation, and the partnership of the public and private sectors. The noncoercion policy means that all birth control techniques are offered and couples are free to use or reject whatever they wish. This has probably slowed the spread of family planning, but has also minimized opposition. Family planning has never been the domain of 1 agency but has been implemented through many agencies working together. Now it is being implemented through total community development plans, of which family planning is merely 1 component. This approach puts irrigation workers, agricultural development workers, and many others on the family planning team. private agencies have also had an important role to play in the development of the total program. For the past 5 years these have been mainly voluntary sociocivic and health associations whose interests are very close to or naturally related to family planning. Now the entry of business into the Population Program through the commercial contraceptive marketing program has enlarged the role of the private sector in the diffusion of family planning products and services. It is possible that the partnership between the public and private sectors may soon be based on segmentation of the target population with government agencies going deep into rural areas while private organizations concentrate on urban and adjacent rural areas.     

Advocating "one couple with one child" being an optimal choice]

Zero population growth within the next 5 years in China would be reached only if many couples were not allowed to have their own child. On the other hand, if every couple were allowed to have 2 children China's population would reach 1500 million within the next 50 years. It seems advisable to advocate the "1 couple 1 child" idea; couples will have to keep in mind both the national interest and the communist ideology; social welfare to assure good living conditions for the old people will relieve the worries of parents with 1 child only. Most people are willing to follow this decision made by the Communist Party; many people declare their willingness to stick by this rule during their wedding ceremony; many couples send back their permit to have a second child, and many women choose abortion when pregnant with a second permitted pregnancy. By the end of 1979 the proportion of "1 couple 1 child" couples was 90% in many large cities; people realize that the practice of "1 couple 1 child" is the best assurance for the future of the country and of their children. This policy will not result in aging of the population, lack of manpower and shortage of soldiers; even if birth rate were 1% in 1985 the proportion of older people for the next 25 years will still be lower than that in European countries. The problem of aging of the population will not occur in this century, and population policies can always be adjusted when needed. Today's problem is to control population through the "1 couple 1 child" policy, even if it may result in many lonely old people, which is a lesser problem than too many people. Even if China has reduced its population growth by 10 million births each year from 1970 to 1979, the necessity to control population growth is still present, in the interest of the country and economic development.     

A modified hurdle model for completed fertility

In this paper it is argued that models for completed fertility have to take into consideration that childless couples and couples with an only child are qualitatively different from couples with two or more children. Indeed, these differences may be the cause of the underdispersion that characterizes completed fertility data. An empirical illustration using Portuguese data suggests that accounting for the qualitative difference between having zero, one, or more children leads to considerable improvements over a model of the type generally used to describe this sort of data.     

Total fertility rate,women's education,and women's work: What are the relationships?

This paper presents the results of a statistical study, using cross-national data, on the relationships between total fertility rate and women's level of education and women's labor participation. Aggregate data on seventy-one countries were collected from numerous sources. Eight variables related to women's fertility, mortality, economic status, labor participation, and education are analyzed using multivariate linear regression analyses. Two models are considered. The first model regresses five variables on total fertility rate: per capita Cross National Product (GNP), percentage of women ages 15 to 19 who are married, female life expectancy at birth, calories available as a percentage of need, and percentage of married couples using contraception. The second model includes two additional regressors: the average number of years of schooling for women, and the percentage of women in the labor force. These seven variables are regressed on total fertility rate. Although the data are crude, the results of the analyses suggest that the model which incorporates women's level of education and women's labor participation captures the data better than the smaller model. The full model suggests that the percentage of women in the labor force is directly related to total fertility rate, whereas the average number of years of education for women is indirectly related to total fertility rate.     

Welfare reform and interstate migration of poor families

The thesis of this study is that as a result of increased inequalities in welfare rules, the 1996 welfare reform act not only enhanced incentives for poor families to move but also (and perhaps more important) created disincentives for them to stay in "race to the bottom" states. In testing this thesis, we evaluated the mediating and moderating roles of state economic development and family structure. We merged data from three main sources: the 1996-1999 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the Urban Institute's Welfare Rules Database, and state economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Modeling both destination (pull) and departure (push) effects of welfare policy measures and selected covariates in a nested discrete-time event-history migration analysis, we found robust support for the thesis that stringency in state welfare-eligibility and behavior-related rules stimulated interstate out-migration of poor families in the United States. However poor families were not drawn to states with relatively more-lenient welfare rules, although stringency in state welfare dollar benefits inhibited in-migration and state unemployment patterns may have conditioned the migration effects of welfare-reform rules on the choice of destination. Single mothers were not more directly affected by welfare-eligibility and behavior-related rules than were poor married couples.     

A joint model of marital childbearing and marital disruption

Married couples with children appear to be less likely to end their marriages than childless couples, especially when the children are young. Although this suggests that children affect the chances that their parents will divorce, the process may not be so simple: the chances that the marriage will last also may affect couples’ willingness to make the commitment to the marriage implied by having children. This paper uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to test the hypothesis that the risk of disruption faced by a married woman affects the chances that she will conceive and bear a child. The model used takes into account the simultaneous relationships between marital dissolution and marital fertility by including the hazard of disruption as a predictor of timing and likelihood of marital conception, and by including the results of previous fertility decisions as predictors of disruption of the marriage. We find that the hazard of disruption has strong negative effects on the hazard of marital childbearing, lengthening the intervals between births and decreasing the chances that a child will be born. This effect appears to be strongest for women who have had at least one child, either before or during the current marriage, although it is also large for childless women. Explicitly including the hazard of disruption in models of marital childbearing has sizable and important effects on many predictors of fertility.     

Marital Fertility Control Among the Qing Nobility: Implications for Two Types of Preventive Check

Demographers, as early as Malthus, have assumed that the preventive checks, delayed marriage and celibacy, were absent in traditional China. In this paper on the Qing (1644–1911) imperial lineage, we demonstrate that, instead, there may have been a different, more ‘modern’ preventive check: fertility control within marriage. Marital fertility of lineage couples during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was low to moderate. Such low fertility was the product of three behavioural mechanisms: late starting, early stopping and, most significantly, long spacing. Couples apparently regulated their fertility according to their economic resources and the sex of their surviving children. Moreover, they did so, we suggest, by regulating their coital frequency. Deliberate fertility control, in other words, was already within the ‘calculus of conscious choice’ for some Chinese well before this century. The speed of contemporary sinitic fertility transitions may accordingly be attributed to the fact that they did not require a change in attitudes, only the diffusion of new incentives and effective technologies.