Investigative Study Of Highly-Educated Chinese Young Urban Women's Fertility Values

Fertility values are people's fundamental view points and attitudes toward the issue of fertility. Fertility values play a dominant role in people's fertility activities. Highly-educated young urban women are a special population group in China. With good cultural background and respectable income, they tend to have independent social, political and economic status in society. And their special positions in society make their fertility values influential to a certain extent. Researching highly-educated young urban women's fertility values is conducive for us to understanding and grasping the development of fertility values. It is also significant in establishing modern fertility values, building harmonious society.Based on Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and James Samuel Coleman's theory of rational choice, this research studied the characteristics and changing of highly-educated Chinese young urban women's fertility values. The thesis firstly presents the background of fertility values and introduces the definition of fertility values. Based on this the thesis briefly illustrates its structure. Then after reviewing the researches on fertility values both in China and abroad, it introduces the research design and methodology of the study of highly-educated Chinese young urban women's fertility values, the general conditions of investigation objects and the process of data collection and analysis. In the body the author makes an investigation of the fertility values of highly-educated Chinese young urban women from three aspects: fertility tendencies, fertility aims and fertility means. The research shows that most highly-educated Chinese young urban women still have a strong fertility desire. They generally regard fertility as an important step of a complete life and approve the value and significance of fertility. Besides, adjusting family atmosphere, maintaining family stability and strengthening spouse affection are also important reasons for highly-educated Chinese young urban women to approve fertility behaviors. On the choice of fertility number, highly-educated young urban women hold that a boy and a girl are ideal in view of the healthy growth of children and their financial conditions. On the study of gender preference most highly-educated Chinese young urban women do not have sexual preference of children. In their opinions, boys and girls are equal. The research also shows that highly-educated Chinese young urban women have a tendency for late child-bearing, value the cultivation of children, and stress the importance of good economic conditions for children bearing and rearing. Through summarizing the characteristics of highly-educated Chinese young urban women's fertility values, this thesis analyzes the reasons for the change of highly-educated Chinese young urban women's fertility values and illustrates that the change of highly-educated Chinese young urban women's fertility values is a result of rational choices. Finally in the conclusion the author briefly reviews the researches and marks out the deficiencies of these researches.