Research On The Effect Of Income Differences For Family Fertility Choice

China's total fertility rate has fallen from 5.81 in the 1970 s to about 1.047 now,which means China has entered a stage of persistently low fertility.Although the Chinese government has accelerated the pace of policy adjustment in recent years,the low fertility trend has not been reversed,with only 12 million births in 2020 and a birth rate of 8.5 per thousand,the lowest level since 1952.How to effectively improve the family's fertility intention and promote the recovery of fertility rate has become the focus of the government and academic circles.At the same time,the situation of family income inequality and wealth inequality is becoming serious in China,which causes various income groups to face different reproductive opportunity costs when making fertility decisions.Besides,families from different income levels have various educational concepts and raising burdens,which will lead to the differentiation of reproductive choices.The family oriented culture with Chinese characteristics may make families with different income structures have various allocations of economic resources and care resources.Therefore,the intergenerational and sexual relations in a family play a key role in regulating the effectiveness of the number of children.This paper first explores the law that income differences affects the long-term change of fertility rate,and tries to analyze its influence mechanism from five aspects: human capital investment,social security,international trade,urbanization and financial liberalization.Using data from the CFPS and constructing econometric analysis model,this paper takes the household as the research object and focuses on three perspectives: family reproductive choice in different income groups,family reproductive choice in the context of intergenerational income differences and family reproductive choice in the context of marital income differences;This paper also investigates how income differences between families and within families affect family reproductive decisions through three dimensions: dependency costs,intergenerational support,and marital support for housework.It is a great significance for comprehensively understanding the situation and changes of the reproductive behavior of families of different income classes in China,grasping the differences of reproductive behavior of families with different income structures,giving full play to the function of family encouragement for reproduction,promoting the release of family fertility willingness and correcting the unbalanced population structure after the adjustment of fertility policy.On the basis of relevant theoretical review and literature review,this paper first constructs an overlapping generation model to study the internal mechanism of income differences affecting fertility change,and uses transnational panel data to empirically test the relationship between income differences and fertility rate change.The results show that widening income differences will lead to the rise of the critical value of human capital investment,which will hinder the possibility of unskilled people with relatively low income to achieve class leapfrog by investing in human capital,resulting in a gradual increase in the number of low-income groups and their descendants in the society;A higher return on investment in human capital will also increase the number of children that people with skills shifts will have,so widening income differences will eventually lead to higher fertility in society.The conclusion of the empirical study supports the analysis of the theoretical model,increasing public investment in education,loosening credit constraints,improving social protection,openness and urbanization will help the unskilled in society to achieve class leapfrog by investing in human capital,and ultimately reduce the fertility rate.Based on the theories and facts,this paper further studies the relationship between income differences and family reproductive choices at the micro level by using the data from the CFPS.The possibility of family reproductive choice will show a downward trend with the increase of per capita family income,especially in rural areas,where the negative impact of income level on family reproductive decision is more significant.Parents in high-income families have a stronger preference to invest their children's human capital,and the family's housing burden is also higher,which may lead to the increase of the cost of childbearing,families may choose to postpone or even give up childbearing behavior.The fertility cost,fertility desire and fertility choice are closely related to the intergenerational and sexual relations within the family.In view of the high participation and important influence of parents and children in the lives of both parties,the cost of family reproduction is different due to the intergenerational interaction within the family and the gender division of housework after the adjusted fertility policy.On the one hand,the economic and care support of elderly parents will increase the income and working time of adult children,which can reduce the burden of having and raising children to a certain extent,and help to improve the fertility intention of children.On the other hand,husbands' sharing of housework can reduce women's housework time from the perspective of promoting gender equity,relieve women's anxiety and resistance to childbearing,reduce women's opportunity cost of reproduction,and play a positive role in family reproductive behavior.Due to the differences in intergenerational support and gender division of housework in families with different income structures,family reproduction costs are not the same,which may lead to the differentiation of family reproductive choices.The empirical research shows that:In families with intergenerational income differences,the higher the economic status of parents is,the more likely they are to strengthen their children's willingness to have children by providing material help and care support to their children,which will contribute to the increase of fertility.The influence of intergenerational income differences on family's "two-child" reproductive choice shows obvious urban-rural differentiation and family income level difference: families with higher economic status in rural areas and low-income groups are more likely to have two-child.In families with income differences between husband and wife,the less economic dependence the wife has on her husband,the less likely the wife is to give birth to children,while the husband's participation in housework can ease the wife's dilemma between home and work,and contribute to the release of family fertility desire.The effect of income differences between husband and wife on family reproductive choice also appears obvious urban-rural differentiation and family income level difference.In rural families,the decline of wife's economic dependence on her husband will reduce the possibility to have the first child,while the rise of wife's economic status has a negative and significant impact on the probability of low-income families to have the first child,and is not conducive to the release of the desire of high-income families to have two-childThe research of this paper is helpful to understand the relationship between income differences and Chinese family reproductive behavior in various ways.The release of fertility potential has not reached the expectation after two times adjustment of fertility policy,it should be noted that reproductive behavior is the result of family's collective decision-making under the influence of the traditional family oriented culture.Therefore,the adjustment of fertility policy should be more inclusive and focus on the function of family in stimulating fertility,rather than on removing the restriction on the number of births.While increasing the public services of child care,the government should subsidize the intergenerational care and women's housework time related to child,reduce the cost of family birth,upbringing and education,introduce preferential measures to meet the housing needs of multi-child families,guide families to achieve intergenerational mutual assistance and gender division of labor in harmonious and effective,and improve the quality of prenatal and postnatal care services,these will be conducive to China's future fertility rate return to a reasonable range.