Research On The Impact Of Socio-Economic Development And The Family Planning Policy On The Total Fertility Rate

This paper discusses the impact of socio-economic development on the totalfertility rate, for which we use panel data of127countries worldwide from1997to2010and use fixed effects model to approach the empirical analysis. The results showthat the independent variables on behalf of the status of women, such as the ratio ofgirls to boys in primary and secondary school, female labor force participation rate andthe proportion of women in parliament seats have a significantly negative impact onthe total fertility rate. It means that to improve the social status of women will lead todecreasing fertility. In addition, we find that changes of the total fertility rate and percapita GDP show a U turn. This verifies the hypothesis of income effect-substitutioneffect of giving birth to children. We also find that child mortality rate and theproportion of the rural population also have a significantly negative impact on totalfertility. This reveals the improvement of health and urbanization will also inhibithuman fertility.Then, the paper compares the difference of the effect between the development ofsocio-economic factors and the family planning policy of our country on fertility. Weselect the representative indicators of our country’s socio-economic development andthe family planning policy. Then we use the principal component analysis to compressthem into the socio-economic development factor and the family planning policy factorrespectively. The empirical results show that the explanation degree of socio-economicdevelopment factor to the total fertility rate increased and the explanation degree of thefamily planning policy factor to the total fertility rate decreased overtime. The effect offamily planning policy on the total fertility rate was greater than the effect of socio-economic development in1990. However, the effect of the total fertility rate of socio-economic development was greater in2000. In2010, the family planning policy effectwas not significant.Finally, based on the results above and the actual situation of China’s population,we put forward some corresponding policy advices to alleviate population problemswhich our country faces.