The Fertility Potential-Releasing Effects of Environmental Governance——Evidence from Prefecture-Level Cities in China
This article incorporates a macroscopic perspective into Becker's fertility"quantity-quality"theoretical model and proposes the household budget constraint equation under environ-mental factors.Based on data from the national fertility survey conducted in 2017 and 279 prefecture-level cities in China,this paper preliminarily explores the effect of environmental governance on fertility potential and its influencing mechanism.The conclusion is that environ-mental governance helps unleash the fertility potential of reproductive-age women,which remains significant after various robustness tests.The impact of environmental governance on the fertility potential of reproductive-age women varies among different groups.It is more helpful in increasing the fertility willingness of"high-income"and"80s"reproductive-age women compared to those with low income and those born before 1980.This article not only proposes a new perspective on unleashing the fertility potential of reproductive-age women but also demon-strates the role of environmental governance in releasing fertility potential through theoretical models and empirical analysis.This finding contributes to alleviating China's low fertility rate problem,enriching the policy connotation of environmental governance,and providing certain enlightenment for policies on"releasing fertility potential"and"ecological civilization construction".