Female Employment and Fertility in Rural China

Hai Fang, Karen Eggleston, John Rizzo and Richard Zeckhauser

Scholarly Articles from Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Abstract: Data on 2,288 married women from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey are deployed to study how off-farm female employment affects fertility. Such employment reduces a married woman’s actual number of children by 0.64, her preferred number by 0.48, and her probability of having more than one child by 54.8 percent. Causality flows in both directions; hence, we use well validated instrumental variables to estimate employment status. China has deep concerns with both female employment and population size. Moreover, female employment is growing quickly. Hence, its implications for fertility must be understood. Ramifications for China’s one-child policy are discussed.

Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published in HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series

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Working Paper: Female Employment and Fertility in Rural China (2010)
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