劳动保护政策的实施是否影响了地区生育水平:育龄女性就业的视角OACHSSCD

Existing research on fertility support policies has focused primarily on family policies,lacking empirical evidence from the labor market per-spective.Adopting the perspective of labor protection in the labor market,this paper exploits the exogenous shock of the implementation of the Labor Contract Law in 2008 to examine the impact of labor protection policies on regional fertility levels.Using panel data from 270 prefecture-level cities in China spanning 2000 to 2023,the empirical results from the generalized difference-in-differences(DID)model show that regions more heavily affected by the law experienced a greater increase in birth rates.This effect remains robust after controlling for population structure,indicating a significant fer-tility-promoting effect of enhanced labor protection.Further analysis from the perspective of the binding force of labor contract protection reveals that the stronger the binding force,the higher the fertility probability of women,which further confirms the aforementioned effect.Mechanism analysis indicates that this effect is attributed to three factors:Enhanced labor protection has not exerted a negative impact on employment;It significantly reduces the fer-tility penalty faced by women;And it improves women's job security.Heterogeneity analysis shows that the fertility-promoting effect is more pro-nounced for first-child fertility and in regions with initially lower levels of labor market regulation.This study provides empirical evidence for boosting fertility through strengthened employment protection,offers a new labor market perspective for establishing and improving current fertility support poli-cies,and is of great significance for raising the overall fertility level of society.