PROVINCE-LEVEL VARIATION IN THE ACHIEVEMENT OF BELOW-REPLACEMENT FERTILITY IN CHINA.

The first part of this paper describes, for China, province-level variation in the year in which below-replacement fertility was achieved. The second part, also based on province-level data, is a multivariate analysis of the effects of (1) fertility policy, and (2) economic and social development on fertility in the year 2000. In 1975, only two provinces—Beijing and Shanghai—had below-replacement fertility, but by 2000, 29 out of 31 provinces had below-replacement fertility. Among these 29 provinces, 22 had a total fertility rate (TFR) below 1.7, and 20 provinces had a TFR below 1.5. The main findings from the cross-sectional multivariate analysis of province-level variation in the TFR are that (1) depending on the measure of economic and social development used, between 33 and 42 percent of the effect of the one-child policy on the TFR, as measured by policy TFR, is actually due to development, and (2) the effect of policy TFR on TFR, after development is controlled for, is 38 to 50 percent less than the effect of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]