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Relaxed population policy, family size and parental investments in children’s education in rural Northwestern China

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  • Chen, Qihui
Abstract
This paper examines the quantity-quality (QQ) trade-off of children in rural Northwestern China, using data collected from Gansu Province on a set of households whose children were born between the mid-1980s and early 1990s, the period when China’s one-child policy was temporarily relaxed. Under the relaxed policy, a second child was allowed if the first-born was a girl. Exploiting this policy change, this paper uses information on the sex of the first-born in a family to capture the causal effect of family size. In contrast to the results from ordinary least-squares regressions which suggest a strong QQ trade-off, the causal estimates based on the instrumental variable method indicate that rural parents hardly face such trade-off, at least in terms of their monetary investments in child education. The instrumental-variable estimation results remain similar when information on twin births is used for identification purpose.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Qihui, 2017. "Relaxed population policy, family size and parental investments in children’s education in rural Northwestern China," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 39-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:injoed:v:54:y:2017:i:c:p:39-50
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2017.03.009
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Yuli Ye & Qinying He & Qiang Li & Lian An, 2024. "The brother's penalty: Boy preference and girls' health in rural China," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(8), pages 1748-1771, August.
    3. Chen, Qihui & Liu, Xiaoyue & Zhao, Qiran, 2018. "Better Nutrition, Healthier Mind? – Experimental Evidence from Primary Schools in Rural Northwestern China," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 273907, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Öberg, Stefan, 2018. "Instrumental variables based on twin births are by definition not valid (v.3.0)," SocArXiv zux9s, Center for Open Science.
    5. Qiling Lu & Jing Hua, 2023. "Micro-Household Human Capital Investment Decisions and a Simulation Study from the Intergenerational Conflict Perspective," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-21, January.

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