Does One-child Policy Improve Human Capital Of Chinese Children?

The "quantity-quality tradeoff" is an important hypothesis in human capital theory.However,the existing studies testing this hypothesis are constantly challenged by the endogeneity of family birth decisions.China's One-child Policy launched around 1980 generates an external shock to family decision,and can be considered as a "natural experiment" on the size of the population.Based on CHIPs 2009 and 2013 survey data,this paper selects a sample of people born around the starting point of the One-child Policy,and uses the regression discontinuity design(RDD)to identify the causal relationship between quantity and quality of the population in China.This paper first limites the research sample to the Han population born in mainland China in the five years before and after 1980.10,and according to the results of previous studies,this paper rules out regions that did not generally implement family planning policies in the previous year.Since the family planning policy mainly targets urban residents,state officials,and employees,this article further restricts the sample to non-agricultural samples.Grouping variables,processing variables,and result variables are three main variables of the fuzzy regression discontinuity design.Grouping variable is the variable that determines whether the individual is on the left or right of the critical value,that is,it determines that the individual is assigned to the treatment group or non-treatment group,represented by X.Grouping variable of this paper is the date of birth of the sample individual.time.The outcome variable,which is the variable of interest is denoted by Y.In this paper,the individual's human capital level(this paper measures the level of human capital by the number of years of education).The processing variable is the key variable that affects the outcome variable,denoted by D.In this paper,whether the sampled individual is an only child.If he is only one child,then D=1,otherwise D=0.This paper first carries out the main regression of the triangular nuclear,and the results show that one-child policy makes the sample's only child rate rise rapidly in a short period of time.The increase rate is about 5%,which is consistent with the intention of the family planning policy.The samples that were born on both sides of the breakpoint in the survey year also showed an upward jump,with an increase of about 0.3 years.After adding the covariates to the regression,the results are not much different.In addition,a series of robustness tests,including rectangular kernel regression,2SLS regression,continuity test of control variables before and after the breakpoint,and McCrary density test,were carried out.The robustness test can basically pass and support the basic conclusions.Afterwards,a placebo test is conducted in this paper to rule out the possibility that the "university enrollment expansion" mainly caused the results.In the end,this article carries out a regression analysis of gender and provinces,and finds that gender discrimination makes the level of education of women born after family planning policies have improved.This has some interference with the conclusions of this paper.The influence of family planning on the level of individual education in developed provinces is also less than that of backward provinces.The conclusions of this paper are as follows:First,statistical descriptions and regressions of breakpoints have shown that family planning policies have significant positive effects in controlling population and improving population quality.Second,through the regression of gender samples,this paper finds that gender discrimination still exists in Chinese families,which is not conducive to the overall improvement of China's population quality.Therefore,China needs to further implement the concept of equality between men and women and implement a more equitable education policy.It will also provide active and effective support for further relaxing population control.Third,through the regression of provincial samples,the author finds that the role of family planning in improving the educational level of the only child is even more pronounced in backward areas.The development of the credit market can reduce the risk of declining population quality brought about by the relaxation of quantity,which is conducive to the adjustment of China's population policies.Therefore,China should speed up the development of the credit market in order to ease the pressure on families to invest in their children.The government can establish a scholarship mechanism in underdeveloped cities to support families with economic difficulties through financial means;the state can also encourage various types of enterprises to provide financial aid to impoverished families,and give them financial incentives as appropriate.The above results may provide policy implications to meet the aging population challenge and improve the human capital level in China.