Desired fertility, realized fertility and the effects of China's Universal Two-Child Policy∗
中文摘要
我们认为，在低生育率背景下，女性的生育意愿已成为约束生育的关键因素：一旦生育意愿降至政策上限以下，仅取消生育配额并不能带来生育率的显著反弹。我们利用中国2016年1月实施的全面二孩政策（UTC）检验这一假说——该政策是在实行数十年独生子女政策（OCP）之后，一次全国范围内的突发性放宽。基于2017年中国生育状况抽样调查的全国代表性数据，并利用全面二孩政策所形成的生育资格差异，我们发现该政策在2016—2017年间仅使每名符合资格的女性增加生育0.023个孩子，且这一增幅几乎完全由希望生育两个或以上孩子的女性所驱动。来自2020年人口普查数据的县级证据进一步表明，2016—2020年间生育率的上升主要出现在平均生育意愿较高的地区。这些结果表明，在后独生子女政策时代的中国，当前制约生育水平的是不断下降的生育意愿，而非行政性生育配额。
Abstract
We argue that women’s desired fertility has become the binding constraint in low-fertility contexts: once fertility desires fall below policy ceilings, removing quotas alone cannot generate a substantial rebound. We test this hypothesis using China’s Universal Two-Child (UTC) policy adopted in January 2016, an abrupt nationwide relaxation following decades of the One-Child Policy (OCP). Drawing on nationally representative data from the 2017 China Fertility Survey and exploiting eligibility variation created by the UTC policy, we find that the policy increased births by only 0.023 per eligible woman in 2016–2017, driven almost exclusively by women who desired two or more children. County-level evidence from the 2020 population census data further shows that fertility in 2016–2020 rose primarily in places with higher average desired fertility. These results indicate that declining fertility desires—not administrative birth quotas—now constrain fertility in post-OCP China.