Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/220068 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper No. TI 2020-031/V
Publisher: 
Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam and Rotterdam
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 0.65 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.
Subjects: 
Fertility
Family planning
China
Spillovers
Peer Effects
Partial population experiment
JEL: 
C36
D1
J11
J13
O15
O53
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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