Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.6, 2013

Fertility Level Assessment and Fertility Policy Adjustment: An Analysis of the Provincial Data on Fertility Level in Mainland China

(Abstract)

Yin Wenyao, Yao Yinmei and Li Fen

The total fertility rate of mainland China during the “11th Five-year Period” was 1.481, showing a steady decline and taking on a spatial pattern of “medium low in the middle and west, deep low in the east, and extreme low in the north east.” Except for the increase of a few provinces with extreme-low fertility rate, the actual fertility rate and its ratio to policy fertility rate are still on the decrease. The major driving force of lowered fertility is development, which is typically seen in the higher urbanization and non-agriculturalization level of those women who are in prime fertility ages than total population or women in child-bearing ages, the large wave of migration, and the assimilation effects of urban livelihood and cultural ideas on rural population. The low-fertility tendency under the effects of development is irreversible. And it is hard for the existing fertility policy to maintain the fertility rate at a rational low level. The key regions that might witness a policy reversal are those urban areas, eastern part and the northeast that have a better basis of birth control; the potential that might incur a non-policy reversal has largely be exhausted; and the additional fertility of the young generation of women in the middle and west is only 4.12% on average. The fertility rebound in the process of fertility policy adjustment can be controlled through progressive strategies. The time for a nation-wide readjustment of the fertility policy has become ripe.