Peng Ruicheng, Mou Wei, Xu Peng
Department of Sociology, School of Philosophy, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2023 Feb 17;13(2):184. doi: 10.3390/bs13020184.
Using the childbearing survey data from Hubei Province in March 2022, this article empirically analyzed the status quo of fertility intention and its influencing factors among Chinese married youth during the COVID-19 pandemic. In our analysis, fertility intention was operationalized as the ideal number of children and short-term fertility plan. Statistical results showed that the average ideal number of children stood at 1.652, which was lower than the population replacement level, whilst only 16.4% of married youth had a short-term fertility plan. By utilizing a binary logit regression model and the sheaf coefficient technique, we found that COVID-19-induced factors (i.e., change in the marital relationship during the epidemic, delayed pregnancy preparation due to vaccination) had a more stable effect on fertility intention, especially on short-term fertility planning. Parenting perception characteristics exerted a great impact on the ideal number of children but a relatively small impact on short-term fertility planning. Meanwhile, married youth with stable jobs and a high family income did not necessarily show stronger fertility intentions than those with fewer socioeconomic resources. In addition, the findings also reveal that the relative importance of fertility-influencing factors could vary at different fertile stages, which have valuable implications for population policy in Chinese contexts.
本文利用2022年3月湖北省的生育调查数据，实证分析了新冠疫情期间中国已婚青年的生育意愿现状及其影响因素。在我们的分析中，生育意愿被操作为理想子女数和短期生育计划。统计结果显示，理想子女数的平均值为1.652，低于人口更替水平，而只有16.4%的已婚青年有短期生育计划。通过使用二元logit回归模型和束系数技术，我们发现新冠疫情引发的因素（即疫情期间婚姻关系的变化、因接种疫苗而推迟备孕）对生育意愿，尤其是对短期生育计划，有更稳定的影响。育儿观念特征对理想子女数有很大影响，但对短期生育计划的影响相对较小。与此同时，有稳定工作和高家庭收入的已婚青年不一定比社会经济资源较少的青年表现出更强的生育意愿。此外，研究结果还表明，生育影响因素的相对重要性在不同生育阶段可能会有所不同，这对中国背景下的人口政策具有重要意义。
