The roles of individuals' socioeconomic characteristics and the government family planning program in China's fertility decline

This paper explores answers to the following two questions: first, did individuals' socioeconomic characteristics play any role in the rapid fertility decline that occurred in China during the 1970's? Secondly, if the rapid fertility decline during the 1970s is mostly a result of the government policy, as many have perceived, to what extent was the government policy effective? Using the 1982 Chinese 1/1000 fertility survey data for Hebei province of China, this paper examines variation in fertility among women of two age cohorts by linking their fertility outcome with their socioeconomic background and earlier reproductive experiences. In addition, this paper assesses the effect of government policy by comparing the determinants of fertility outcome between two cohorts of women and by studying the factors affecting their current contraceptive use. The findings reveal that the individual's socioeconomic background was important in explaining earlier fertility variation. Government policy, although powerful enough to override most of the effect of socioeconomic factors on fertility, was not able to eliminate differences in contraceptive behavior among Chinese women.