The Effect Of Social Capital On Fertility Intentions

Since the implementation of the "one-child" fertility policy in the 1980 s,China’s total fertility rate(TFR)has decreased all the way.There is no doubt that the fertility policy has achieved the expected success,but in recent years,there are more and more disputes about the policy.The main reason is that in recent years,the domestic population structure has changed rapidly,the aging problem is becoming more and more prominent,and the demographic dividend is gradually decreasing.In recent years,China has been constantly adjusting the fertility policy in order to deal with the problem of aging,but the policy effect is not obvious.At present,China is facing a serious problem of population aging.In the study of fertility,the study of fertility intention has always been popular.Because based on China’s population policy,the real fertility behavior is difficult to reflect people’s real fertility tendency.Scholars hope to predict the real fertility behavior through the study of the change of fertility intention.The research on fertility intention is also of great significance,which will help to understand people’s real fertility behavior and provide guidance for policy-making.By using the data of Chinese General Social Survey(CGSS)in 2013 and 2015,this paper defines social capital from two aspects-personal trust and social network with relatives,and empirically analyzes the causal relationship between social capital and fertility intention by using linear model regression.In order to solve the endogenous problem of social capital indicators,three community-based instrumental variables are used to estimate the impact of trust and social network with relatives.The results show that there is a significant positive correlation between social capital and women’s fertility intention.Next,this paper examined three heterogenous effects.What’s more,to make sure results are not driven by random chance,this paper carries out extensive tests of robustness to different nonlinear model,alternative definitions of trust and co-resident kin.Strategies pass all these tests,which indicates baseline results are credible.This paper provides positive evidence for social capital and has important economic and policy implications.It supports policies aimed at promoting people to have more children by promoting trust,encouraging large families to live together and developing childcare services.Therefore,the government should clean up dishonest behaviors and crimes campaigns with take drastic measures,since it can improve the level of social trust and promote females’ willingness to have children.Another policy implication is that if policies can provide support for big families,such as monetary incentives and tax rebates,encouraging family members to live together or nearby,it may have a positive impact on fertility.What’s more,the decision to have a child is associated with long-term time and money costs.In order to promote fertility,the government should support the development of child care services.Cheap and high-quality child care services can reduce women’s family care costs,promote women’s work-family balance,and then improve their fertility willingness.