Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-24hb2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T18:08:49.906Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The effect of family size on education: new evidence from China's one-child policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2019

Laura M. Argys
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, 80204, USA Institute for Research in Labor-IZA, Bonn, Germany
Susan L. Averett*
Affiliation:
Institute for Research in Labor-IZA, Bonn, Germany Department of Economics, Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: Averetts@lafayette.edu
Get access

Abstract

Economists theorize that the inverse relationship between income and family size reflects a trade-off between child quality and quantity. Testing this hypothesis requires addressing the simultaneity of the quality and quantity decisions. The unanticipated birth of twins and sex composition of the first two children have been used as the exogenous variation in family size with mixed results. We exploit the One-Child Policy (OCP) in China, which exogenously reduced fertility, and examine how the OCP affected the education of Chinese migrants to the USA. Using the American Community Survey and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find higher levels of education for Chinese migrants born after the OCP compared with their counterparts from other East Asian countries. This finding provides additional support for the existence of a quality-quantity trade-off.

Type
Research Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreas, Joel (2009). Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of China's New Class. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 164. ISBN 978-0804760782.Google Scholar
Angrist, Joshua, Lavy, Victor, and Schlosser, Analia (2010). Multiple experiments for the causal link between the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Labor Economics 28(4), 773824.Google Scholar
BBC (2015). China to end one child policy and allow two. October 29, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34665539 Last accessed 8/15/2016.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. and Lewis, H. Gregg (1973). On the interaction between the quantity and quality of children. The Journal of Political Economy 81(2) S279S288.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary S. and Tomes, Nigel (1976). Child endowments and the quantity and quality of children. Journal of Political Economy 84(4), S143S162.Google Scholar
Black, Sandra E., Devereux, Paul G., and Salvanes, Kjell G. (2005). The more the merrier? The effect of family composition on children's education. Quarterly Journal of Economics 120(2), 669700.Google Scholar
Borjas, George J. (1985). Assimilation, changes in cohort quality, and the earnings of immigrants. Journal of Labor Economics 3(4), 463489.Google Scholar
Cai, Yong (2010). China's below-replacement fertility: government policy or socioeconomic development? Population and Development Review 36(3), 419440.Google Scholar
CIA (2014). The World Factbook. Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2018.html. Last accessed on July 17, 2014.Google Scholar
Hesketh, Therese, Lu, Li and Xing, Zhu Wei (2005). The effect of China's one-child family policy after 25 years. New England Journal of Medicine 353(11), 11711176.Google Scholar
Islam, Asadul and Smyth, Russel (2015). Do fertility control policies affect health in old age? Evidence from China's one-child experiment. Health Economics 24(5), 601616.Google Scholar
Lee, Jungmin (2008). Sibling size and investment in children's education: an Asian instrument. Journal of Population Economics 21(4), 855875.Google Scholar
Li, Hongbin, Zhang, Junsen, and Zhu, Yi (2008). The quantity-quality trade-off of children in a developing country: identification using Chinese twins. Demography 45(1), 223243.Google Scholar
Liu, Haoming (2014). The quality–quantity trade-off: evidence from the relaxation of China's one-child policy. Journal of Population Economics 27(2), 565602.Google Scholar
Millimet, Daniel L. and Wang, Le (2011). Is the quantity-quality trade-off a trade-off for all, none, or some? Economic Development and Cultural Change 60(1), 155195.Google Scholar
Peters, Cristina, Rees, Daniel I. and Hernández-Julián, Rey (2013). The trade-off between family size and child health in rural Bangladesh. Eastern Economic Journal 40(1), 7195.Google Scholar
Ponczek, Vladimir and Souza, Andre Portela (2012). New evidence of the causal effect of family size on child quality in a developing country. Journal of Human Resources 47(1), 64106.Google Scholar
Qian, Nancy (2009). Quantity-quality and the one child policy: the only-child disadvantage in school enrollment in rural China (No. w14973) National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, Mark R. and Zhang, Junsen (2009). Do population control policies induce more human capital investment? Twins, birth weight and China's “one-child” policy. The Review of Economic Studies 76(3), 11491174.Google Scholar
Settles, Barbara H., Sheng, Xuewen, Zang, Yuan, and Zhao, Jia (2013). The one-child policy and its impact on Chinese families. In Chan, K. B. (ed.) International Handbook of Chinese Families, Edited by: Chan, KB pp. 627646. New York: Springer.Google Scholar