Trends in Childlessness Proportion among Chinese Women:A Cohort Analysis
The increasing phenomenon of childlessness in China has caused extensive attention.Based on the 2017 China Fertility Survey data and from a cohort perspective,we first calculated age-specific childlessness proportions and the urban-rural,educational differences.Then,we analyzed the postponement and recuperation of first births,and finally we decomposed the differences in the childlessness proportion between cohorts.The results show that the childlessness proportion increases among women aged 29 in later birth cohorts,and is higher among urban women and among higher educated women,reflecting the reality of delayed first childbearing among women in later birth cohorts.Although there is a recuperation of childbearing at later reproductive ages,the corresponding recuperation is weaker in the later birth cohort.The older the age at first marriage,the greater the likelihood of childlessness for life,and the contribution of the rising proportion never-married to the rising of childlessness proportion increases in later birth cohorts.Using a stepwise replacement method,the age-specific decomposition of differences in the childlessness proportion between cohorts shows that at early reproductive ages,the higher age-specific conditional probability of not giving birth among later birth cohorts increased the childlessness proportion,and at advanced ages the age-specific conditional probability of not giving birth decreased,resulting in a recuperation of childbearing,but the degree of the recuperation is limited.The childlessness proportion among young women is expected to increase in the future.
Proportion of ChildlessnessChildbearing PostponementDecomposition
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
