The Impacts of Chinese Early Education Reform on Fertility
This paper examines the causal impacts of the recent national preschool education reform in China,which began in 2010,on mothers'fertility behavior,using the 2010-2020 panel data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies data and a Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity(Fuzzy RD)design.On average,universal preschool education had no significant effect on mothers'fertility behavior,but increased access to public kindergartens increased the number of re-births among women of childbearing age by about 0.2.The impacts were larger among urban,highly educated,and low fertility expectancy women of childbearing age.Our results suggest that the expansion of public preschools can help reduce the intensity of the"quantity-quality"trade-off,alleviate the"work-family"time allocation conflict,break the negative relationship between income,education,and fertility,and promote fertility among women with low fertility intentions.This paper provides one of the first empirical evidence of the"fertility effects"of preschool expansion policies,with important implications for effective policies to promote fertility behavior in China.
early education reformimpact evaluationfertility behaviorfuzzy regression discontinuity design
万方数据
维普
