Economic Explanations On Reproductive Behavior

Even before China adopted the birth-control policy, there is a big gap in birth rate between rural and urban areas. It is hard to explain through the birth policy. The first part of this article gives an economic explanation to this puzzle through the cost and utility analysis. The reproductive order is a kind of social order, and the "invisible hand" is regulating this order as well. The "invisible hand" plays the most important role in the fertility transition in western developed countries, while in China the state-mandated family planning program plays so important role in the fertility transition that people often ignore the effect of "invisible hand", which becomes stronger and stronger. The second part of this article offers the comparison of fertility transition between China and West.With the tool of Becker's model of quantity and quality, the third part develops that the improvement of mother's education degree will increase children's quality and decrease children's quantity. So will do the improvement of children's "Firm Cost". At last this article explains why the fertility rate falls with the improvement of people's income and why in traditional agriculture families used to choose more children with low quality.