| The observed effects of the one-child policy of China, such as reducing the growth rate of the Chinese population, have been studied extensively. However, little research has been conducted to study the unobserved effects of the policy. This study makes such an effort. It attempts to make the first investigation of the effects of China's one-child policy on the parental human capital investments in children of Chinese households using economic models. In particular, the study tests the quantity-quality fertility models developed by the Nobel Prize laureate, Gary Becker with survey data collected in 1990 through the joint efforts of Professor Dudley L. Poston at Cornell University, Professor Toni Falbo at University of Texas at Austin, and the Chinese government. It answers such questions as: (1) who tends to disobey the one-child policy, (2) whether the parents who disobeyed the one-child policy systematically invested differently in their children than the parents who obeyed the policy? and (3) is there any significant differences in parental human capital investments in relation to a child's gender, birth order, family structure and residence locality (rural v.s. urban), given the number of children in the household? Question (3) above is translated into five hypotheses.;In order to obtain more accurate measures of effects of the one-child policy on parental human capital investment, four different measures have used. The upper and lower bounds for the policy effect are obtained.;The results show that the rural parents are more likely to disobey the policy than their urban counterparts. Higher education of the mother, higher family income, and the existence of one older sibling regardless of the gender of the sibling all decrease the probability of the parents disobeying the policy.;The results also reveal that the policy effects are significant for most measures of parental human capital investment, though the policy effects are found to be stronger for some measures of parental human capital investment than others. Policy disobeyers tend to invest less than the average parents, and even less than the parents of only children.;Since parents can invest in their children's human capital in many different ways, it is impossible to use one variable to capture these forms of parental investment adequately. This study uses seven different measures to capture different aspects of parental human capital investment in their children. |
