Current and desired fertility : reflections on fertility decline in China

Abstract

This thesis compares women's current fertility with their fertility preferences during the period of rapid fertility decline, with special reference to Hebei and Shaanxi provinces and Shanghai municipality in China. It explores the gap between the government's birth control targets and couples' individual aspirations for children, the reasons for the differences, and the policy implications. China’s powerful government and stringent population policy played a crucial role in the radical and sustained fertility decline during the 1970s. Besides socio-economic development and the transformation of the institutions, the ideology of the leaders, the function of all political administrative and mass organizations, and mass movements, were the major elements in the enforcement of China's unique population policies that resulted in a dramatic fertility decline. Significant changes in these aspects since the post-Mao reforms offer partial explanations for the stalling of fertility decline in the 1980s. Empirical evidence from the three reference regions suggests that the fertility transition occurred in China with dramatic suddenness; the radical fertility decline was triggered by the rapid spread of the government supported family planning program, under the direction of the mandatory population policy. This is particularly true in largely rural regions such as Hebei and Shaanxi where the conditions of socio-economic development were not sufficient to induce a dramatic and sustained fertility decline. These gaps between current fertility, desired fertility, and the government target fertility imply that a significant part of the achieved decline in fertility may have been caused by unwilling submission to the pressure of the government birth control policy; thus it can be considered an unstable level of fertility. Any relaxation of the population policy and regulations could lead to a fertility rebound. The great effort of China's family planning programs somewhat reduced couples' demand for children, but did not change their attitudes towards 'male superiority'. Whether or not the third or higher order births can be eliminated is crucial to the success of the further reduction of fertility. In Hebei and Shaanxi, the strong birth control policy overrode the influence of some major socio-economic characteristics of women with two children to go on to bear a third child, while son preference became the most significant factor that continued to exert a great influence on bearing the third child even during the period of vigorous birth control campaigns; and the overall quantitative effect of sex preference on recent fertility is substantial. Furthermore, the high and rising overall sex ratios at birth, and the increasing sex ratios across parities seem to be the results of the confounding effect of son preference and rigid birth control policy. The custom of arranged marriage remains to some extent, particularly in some inland regions such as Shaanxi, and betrothal during the teens is still prevalent in largely rural regions; these are among major obstacles to the acceptance of late marriage. Consequently, the fertility decline was accompanied by a unique pattern of fertility control with low fertility, but relatively low contraceptive effectiveness and high incidence of induced abortion. This implies that China did successfully control its fertility at the society level within a short period, but not yet at the individual level in terms of couples' voluntary control of their reproductive behaviour. In the long term, the attainment or continuation of low and stable fertility will have to rely more strongly on fundamental changes in socio-economic development and some elements of the traditional culture that favour higher fertility.