Online Invited Seminar Talk

Spillovers in Childbearing Decisions and Fertility Transitions: Evidence from China

Pauline Rossi
Online Invited Seminar Talk, September 28, 2021

Pauline Rossi, Associate Professor, CREST-Ecole Polytechnique gives an Online Seminar Talk about her findings that provide evidence that social multipliers can accelerate fertility transitions.

Abstract

This article uses China’s family planning policies to quantify and explain spillovers in fertility decisions. We test whether ethnic minorities decreased their fertility in response to the policies, although only the majority ethnic group, the Han Chinese, were subject to birth quotas. We exploit the policy rollout and variation in pre-policy age-specific fertility levels to construct a measure of the negative shock to Han fertility. Combining this measure with variation in the local share of Han, we estimate that a woman gives birth to 0.64 fewer children if the average completed fertility among her peers is exogenously reduced by one child. The fertility response of minorities is driven by cultural proximity with the Han and by higher educational investments, suggesting that spillovers operate through both social and economic channels. These results provide evidence that social multipliers can accelerate fertility transitions.

Register to Take Part

You would like to attend the Online Seminar Talk? You are very welcome. Please register by writing an e-mail to office-myrskyla@demogr.mpg.de.

Online Seminar Talk, September, 28th from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. (Rostock time)