代际流动如何影响生育意愿？——来自收益端的新视角

代际流动如何影响生育意愿？——来自收益端的新视角

How does Intergenerational Mobility Affect Fertility Intention? A New Perspective from the Benefit Side

《财经研究》2023年49卷第11期 页码：140 - 154 online：2023年11月3日

作者

中：刘金东1,2 , 王佳慧1 , 宁磊3

英：Liu Jindong1,2, Wang Jiahui1, Ning Lei3

作者单位：1. 山东财经大学 财政税务学院, 山东 济南 250014; 2. 山东财经大学 经济研究中心, 山东 济南250014; 3. 上海财经大学 高等研究院, 上海 200433

摘要及关键词

摘要：长期以来，由于生育收益难以量化，实证分析中关于生育意愿的研究过于强调生育成本的考量而忽视了成本收益的权衡。文章以代际流动程度作为生育收益的度量，从代际流动和生育意愿同步降低的基本事实出发，研究探讨了两者之间的内在关联。文章认为生育子女无论是出于消费品动机还是投资品动机，都存在“望子成龙”“望女成凤”的代际收益考量，子女向上流动的代际收益效应能否抵冲其生育成本带来的生育抑制效应？这是影响家庭生育决策的关键因素。文章构建理论模型，阐述了生育子女数量与代际流动之间的关系，基于中国家庭金融调查（CHFS）和中国社会综合调查（CGSS）数据的实证分析显示，代际向上流动对生育意愿产生显著的正向影响，即代际向上流动程度越高，则家庭二孩生育意愿越强，多种稳健性检验均支持了这一结论。进一步的机制检验显示，未来向上流动悲观情绪产生的预期效应对生育的影响尚未显现，结果主要由质量和数量权衡效应对生育数量的影响所驱动。文章的研究在一个更加完整的研究范式下探讨了家庭生育决策的考量因素，指出了当前进一步优化人口发展战略不能仅仅考虑成本问题，还要重视代际收益，文章也揭示了畅通向上流动通道的人口学意义。

关键词：代际流动；生育意愿；生育动机；质量和数量权衡

Summary: For a long time, the research on fertility intention has placed too much emphasis on fertility costs and neglected fertility benefits. Chinese traditional culture also emphasizes the function of raising children more than the costs of that. The old saying “may children succeed” implies that fertility decisions may be affected by expectations of social mobility. If the prospects for children to achieve upward mobility in the future are slim, then the willingness to have children will also decrease. Therefore, intergenerational mobility has become a reasonable measure of fertility benefits, representing an expected increase in disposable resources in the future, as well as an expected decrease in the life-cycle budget constraint. This paper starts from the basic fact that intergenerational mobility and fertility intention have decreased simultaneously, and explores the underlying relationship between them. It believes that regardless of the motivation for giving birth, there are intergenerational benefit considerations. Whether the intergenerational benefits of upward mobility of children can offset the birth-inhibition effect brought about by their reproductive costs is a key factor affecting family fertility decisions. This paper constructs a theoretical model to explain the relationship between the number of children born and intergenerational mobility, and demonstrates that raising costs can reduce fertility intention, while intergenerational benefits measured by intergenerational mobility can significantly increase it. This paper obtains individual fertility intention from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) data, and calculates intergenerational mobility indicators based on the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data. These two sets of data are nested for regression analysis, suggesting that intergenerational mobility has a significant positive impact on fertility intention. That is, the higher the intergenerational mobility, the stronger the willingness of families to have more children. A series of robustness tests support this conclusion. Further mechanism testing shows that the quality-quantity tradeoff effect serves as a significant factor other than the prediction effect. From a more complete research paradigm, this paper explores the considerations on family fertility decision-making, points out that the current strategy of further optimizing population development should not only consider the costs, but also pay attention to intergenerational benefits. This paper also reveals the demographic significance of “unblocked upward mobility channels”.

Key words:intergenerational mobility; fertility intention; fertility motivation; quality and quantity tradeoff

其他信息

DOI：10.16538/j.cnki.jfe.20230916.401

收稿日期：2023-06-09

基金项目：国家自然科学基金项目（72141303，71803118，71874105，72273091）

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