中等收入家庭的"生育塌陷":事实与解释OACHSSCD

The ongoing decline in fertility rate has severely hindered the China's economic and population development.Meanwhile,there has been a clear trend of divergence in fertility decisions among families with different income levels,with middle-income families tending to have lower fertility rates.Using instrumental variables,propensity score matching and other methods,the typical characteristics and determining factors of middle-income families were explored based on data from China General Social Surveys(CGSS)in 2015,2017,2018 and 2021.The findings are as follows:1)Middle-income families are observed to experience a distinct"fertility collapse",characterised by a lower number of children compared to both high-income and low-income families.2)The ideal number of children for middle-income families shows no significant difference from that of low-income and high-income families."Fertility collapse"in middle-income groups is attributed not to a deficiency in fertility intentions,but rather to constrained reproductive behaviour.3)Middle-income families are more dependent on the labour market and face more severe constraints in terms of work-family conflicts and trade-offs between the quantity and quality of children.This results in a failure to translate their fertility intentions into fertility behaviours,and thus to a"fertility collapse".The study deepened our understanding of the logic behind the population's reproductive decision-making process,providing empirical evidence that the population's motivation to have children should be activated in a disaggregated and orderly manner.This paper argues that fertility support policies should address the needs of the middle-income group and provide targeted support measures.It emphasises that,alongside increasing the size of this group,it is also necessary to improve its quality and enhance the parenting capacity of middle-income families.