Research On The Welfare Effect Of Chinese Women’s Childcare

It is a consensus that China has gradually entered a low fertility level in the academic community.The long-term low fertility level will accelerate the aging problem in China and pose a severe challenge to the economic and social development.The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China points out that it is necessary to "promote the matching of fertility policy and relevant economic and social policies,and strengthen the research on population development strategy".At the present stage,the reason for the low fertility rate in China is the dilemma faced by women who are both material producers and social reproducers.Therefore,a systematic study of women’s welfare effect will help us fully understand the difficulties and choices faced by women in childcare,which is of great practical significance to relevant theoretical exploration and policy practice.However,the relevant research in China is still insufficient.On the basis of reviewing and analyzing the relevant literature at home and abroad,this study establishes a theoretical analysis model in line with China’s national conditions,and makes an empirical analysis of women’s welfare level from the aspects of objective welfare and subjective welfare.Specifically,the objective welfare effect is measured by the impact of parenting behavior on women’s labor income.At the same time,because women’s welfare level is closely related to the family,the objective welfare effect within the family is measured by the influence of childcare behavior on the distribution of housework and material resources within the family;for the subjective welfare effect,from the perspective of life cycle This paper examines the impact of childbirth on women’s life satisfaction to measure the subjective welfare effect of childcare on women.This paper makes an empirical analysis from the perspectives of income,family resource allocation and subjective life satisfaction,and makes a systematic and comprehensive study on the welfare effect of women’s childcare behavior in China.On this basis,it puts forward policy suggestions to improve the welfare effect of women’s childcare in China.In addition,the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 has made great changes in people’s production and life style.To coordinate epidemic prevention,digital economy has played an important role in stabilizing the economic and social operation.According to the relevant research report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and development,the outbreak of the new epidemic has accelerated the transition of the global economy to digital.The need for epidemic prevention and control has made the people of China experience a "digital training of production and living habits".In the era of digital economy,Internet use has become an important force to promote the change of individual economic welfare.After confirming that childcare behavior will indeed reduce women’s income level and have an adverse impact on their objective welfare,will Internet use play an expanding or narrowing role in the era of digital economy?This paper empirically tests the possible impact of Internet use on the " Motherhood Wage Penalty",as an extension of the objective welfare effect of female childcare behavior,so as to make this study more practical in the context of the digital economy era.Firstly,this paper reviews the existing theories and literatures.From the perspective of welfare economics and demography,this paper combs the relevant theories of family decision-making,and tries to apply these theories to the model construction in this paper.In the aspect of empirical research,this paper studies the demographic factors,welfare economic factors and policy factors that affect women’s childcare welfare.It summarizes the empirical research from three aspects of women’s labor market,resource allocation within the family and subjective feelings.It points out the shortcomings of the existing research results and leads to the entry point of this paper.Secondly,it combs the relevant national policies and typical facts in order to establish the theoretical model.Firstly,it combs the policy evolution of childcare arrangement in China,and grasps the transition track of parenting responsibility among the state,society and family from a macro perspective,as well as the policy background.Second,using the data of China Nutrition and Health Survey(CHNS),China family tracking difference adjustment(CFPS),the second China Women’s status survey,the third China Women’s status survey data and other national survey data,this paper systematically combs the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of child care arrangements in China,and points out that the family is the main undertaker of child care arrangements The mother is the main undertaker of the child care arrangement,the elderly care for their grandchildren has become an important supplement to female child care,and the proportion of formal kindergarten services in the child care arrangement is small.Finally,under the policy background of our country,according to the typical characteristics of child care arrangement in our country,considering the altruism among generations and the bargaining theory within the family,the progressive theoretical models of the elderly and the husband and wife,the husband and wife and the women are established in turn.Based on mathematical model derivation,this paper qualitatively analyzes the influencing factors of the welfare effect of women after childbirth.Provide theoretical basis for the next part of empirical analysis.Thirdly,in the empirical analysis part,based on the factors that may cause the changes of women’s welfare after childbearing,this part uses the micro data of CHNS and CFPS and the macro data of city level to investigate the welfare effect of women’s childcare from women’s income,family resource allocation and women’s subjective life satisfaction,and tests the Internet use The possible impact on the objective welfare effect of motherhood penalty.The empirical analysis consists of four parts:① The influence of childcare on mother’s income.This paper investigates the influence of childcare behavior on women’s income and its persistence.After overcoming the endogenous problem by using Ⅳ two-stage least square method,it is found that the negative influence of childcare time on women’s income will last for two years.Further analysis shows that the continuous negative impact of childcare time on women’s wage rate is the fundamental reason for the persistence of motherhood penalty.② The influence of childcare on family resource allocation.Based on OLS and Probit regression,this paper examines whether the increase of women’s childcare time affects the allocation of resources within the family.The empirical results show that in areas and groups with more equal gender concepts,such as urban,junior college and above groups,with the increase of women’s childcare time,men will increase the burden of housework.As a result of family nutrition distribution,the possibility of overweight and obesity for women will also increase significantly;in areas with traditional gender concept,such as rural groups,with the increasing burden of women’s childcare,Men’s housework time was not significantly affected,and women’s possibility of being underweight may be significantly increased.This means that women’s childcare will make the gender relationship develop in favor of women in areas with equal gender concepts,while women’s childcare has not improved women’s situation in traditional gender concept areas.③The influence of childbirth on women’s life satisfaction is taken as a measure of women’s subjective welfare.In view of the characteristics of children’s growth,more parenting investment is needed in early childhood.When children grow up,the demand for caring will be reduced,and women’s childcare behavior will have the characteristics of life cycle.Therefore,this parts no longer only examines the impact of parenting behavior on women’s subjective welfare changes,but takes childbirth as a life event,adding time factor to consider the impact of childbirth on women’s life satisfaction from the perspective of life cycle.Based on propensity score matching method and multiphase double difference method,the results show that childbearing before the age of 30 will have a negative impact on life satisfaction,but as time goes on,for middle-aged and elderly women,childbirth has no significant impact on their life satisfaction.④ The impact of Internet usage on women’s income.Using OLS,Ⅳ-heckit model and Probit regression model,this paper examines the difference of the impact of Internet usage on the income of childless women and women with children,so as to evaluate the possible role of the development of digital economy on the objective welfare effect of childcare.The results show that Internet use can significantly improve women’s income,but the positive impact on the income of childless women is greater than that on the income of women with children.This means that with the development of digital economy and the increase of Internet penetration rate,Internet usage will widen the income gap between childless women and women with children.Further analysis shows that Internet usage improves labor efficiency,reduces the possibility of informal employment,and increases labor income by applying Internet to learning,social,work and business activities.Compared with the childless women,women with children are more likely to use the Internet to reduce their working hours,increase the possibility of informal employment,and have a lower preference of using the Internet for learning and social networking to increase their income.Finally,policy recommendations.In this part we comb the experience of other countries’ child care related social welfare policies,and draw lessons from the experience of other countries to give policy enlightenment on improving the welfare effect of women’s childcare.The main innovation points of this paper include three points:first,in theory,based on China’s national conditions,the establishment of family decision-making model including the elderly,women and their spouses,expanding the theoretical system of research.Second,from the perspective of research,previous studies lack the use of childcare time as a measure of women’s childcare behavior,as well as the persistence of the impact on women’s income,the burden of household chores and the distribution of material resources within the family welfare research.Thirdly,we use instrumental variable method,Ⅳ-heckit model,propensity score matching method and multi period double difference method to overcome the endogenous problems between female parenting behavior and attention variables such as income and life satisfaction,so as to make the welfare effect of female parenting behavior more robust in causal identification.