Migration, fertility, and state policy in Hubei Province, China.
Despite China's one-child family planning policy, the nation experienced a slight rise in the birth rate in the mid-1980s. Many observers attributed this rise to the heightened fertility of those rural-to-urban migrants who moved without a change in registration (temporary migrants), presumably to avoid the surveillance of family planning programs at origin and destination. Using a sequential logit analysis with life-history data from a 1988 survey of Hubei Province, we test this possibility by comparing nonmigrants, permanent migrants, and temporary migrants. While changing family planning policies have a strong impact on timing of first birth and on the likelihood of higher-order births, migrants generally do not have more children than nonmigrants. In fact, migration tends to lower the propensity to have a child. More specifically, the fertility of temporary migrants does not differ significantly from that of other women.
Goldstein
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Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. Alice_Goldstein@brown.edu
White
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Goldstein
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001723:Birth Rate; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003906:Developing Countries; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005193:Family Planning Services / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D005260:Female; D006291:Health Policy / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008875:Middle Aged; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011247:Pregnancy; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data