When Do Couples Sign the One-Child Certificate in Urban China?
Published in: Population Research and Policy Review, v. 13, no. 1, 1994, p. 69-81
Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 1994
This paper analyzes a central part of China's one-child policy: when do eligible couples sign the one-child certificate and what are important socioeconomic determinants of this decision? The authors use proportional hazard models applied to micro-data from the 1985 Chinese Fertility Survey to study this question. Results for urban residents in Hebei and Shaanxi indicate that a couple's socioeconomic characteristics significantly affect the timing of signing the certificate. In particular, education of the husband and wife, household wealth, and the age at marriage increase the probability of signing the certificate at an earlier time, while living space decreases the probability. Living in extended family structure or a male first child (to test for son preference) apparently have little effect.
This report is part of the RAND Corporation External publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.
The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.