Analysis Of The Impacts Of Histortical Changes Of Birth Spacing Policy On Period Fertility And Its Pattern In China

Fertility timing is one of the important dimensions of fertility pattern,which is usually measured by the mean age of birth by parity and the interval between different parities.It is crucial for the development and modifications of population policies to study the current situation,trend and influencing factors of these indicators.The length of second birth interval is quite different in various periods and different societies of human being reproduction,showing distinct regional,social and cultural differentials.China is one of the few countries which regulated people's fertility behavior by setting the requirements for the number of children they could have and their birth timing in the world.Birth spacing played a vital role amid the development of China's fertility policy,which advocated “later birth,longer interval and less children” in early 1970 s.Since 1980,more provinces included birth spacing requirements in their local family planning regulations.The couples who were eligible to have a second child needed to meet either the minimum length of interval between the first and the second child and / or the minimum age at which a mother can have a second child.It has been utilized as a means to control population growth,shaping the fertility pattern of reproductive-age population and mitigating population growth more than 30 years since birth spacing policies were established in 1980 s until universally terminated in 2016.Most of the existing studies analyzed the arithmetic mean and the internal structure of second birth interval to evaluate the variation of birth timing of second birth.However,due to the limited available micro-data with women' birth history,the change of second birth interval in the past ten years is lacking.Meanwhile,because the length of birth interval determines the maternal health and infants developments,the identification of the size and trend of the population with too long and too short birth interval is a special necessity to the population health and development.And it is necessary to further understand of the characteristics and changing regularity of the internal structure of second birth interval in past decade,especially through which is a period of frequent change of the fertility policy in China.To study the effect of birth spacing policy on the second birth interval in China is not only an important part of the historical evaluation of family planning policy after the implementation of universal two-child policy,but also is a practical need to improve the accuracy of population forecasting in China.At the same time,the length of birth interval is close related to maternal and child health.Figure out the scale and trends of births with too long and too short birth interval has important health-policy significance.Therefore,better understanding the characteristics of birth interval and the law of change has vital meaning and importance to population development.However,for a long time,the microscopic data available for computing second birth interval is quite limited,and the corresponding data is urgently needed for the domestic related empirical research.In addition,the existing literature lacks a detailed analysis of China's birth spacing policy,and the related policy effect research is also a blank.Existing research on China's fertility transition has focused on the impact of birth number limitation policies,such as assessing the impact of which on the second birth interval,while much less attention has been paid to the birth timing polices themselves.very rare studies examine whether and how the birth spacing policy affects the period fertility fluctuation and the transition of the fertility pattern in China,not even to say the understanding the different stages of fertility transition for individual province through a birth timing policy approach.The high diversity and the frequent changes over time of the birth spacing policies hambered the research on the effects of spacing policy.However,from another point of view,the wide range of policy differences across provinces also provides great scope for studying how the births,period fertility,birth timing and birth interval fluctuated long with policy changes,especially for the periods after the old policy was cancelled or the new policy was implemented.We will verify how the birth spacing policy at different stages with different contents in different places affect the interval distribution of second birth and bring what kind of impact on period fertility and what kind of progressive pattern conditioned on the interval between the first and the second birth.At the same time,the study of China's birth spacing policy and its policy effects can contribute the evaluation of the historical role of the family planning policy,In the context of childbearing postponement is receriving further attention as an encitial factor explaining low fertility,the analysis of the birth timing and birth interval of the second birth in relation to the birth spacing policy is helpful to understand the process and cause of the childbearing delay in China,and to project period fertility and and fertility pattern of China.This paper first analyzes the historical changes of birth spacing policy in China,and compares the requirements of birth spacing in each province for different periods,and makes comparisons between provinces.We analyzed the historical changes of second birth interval from two dimensions,one of which is the trends of the average second birth interval from1970 to 2013.The other is the distribution of second birth interval over time.After that,survival analysis was used to compare the risk and progress of having a second child and its birth timing before and after the introduction of birth spacing policy,which reflected the effect of birth spacing policy on fertility behavior of two children.We also present the differentials of women between cohorts,by urban and rural residence,ethnic groups,regions,gender of first child and women's educational attainment level.In the last part of the paper,based on the provincial typical analysis and the provincial comparative analysis,we examine how the change of the provincial spacing policy affects the second child-bearing time and the second child-bearing level.A detailed analysis of the related requirements and historical changes of the birth spacing policy of 31 provinces(regions and cities)in China makes clear the approach,the detailed requirements and the modification of birth spacing in each province,which fills the gap of current policy research literature.It also provides a general background to understand the trends and change of second birth in China.As an important part of the "late-longer-fewer" population policy in 1970 s,the birth spacing regulation is a kind of policy interventon for the "early-shorter-many" fertility pattern at that time.It has experienced three stages of birth spacing policy development,to be specific,the budding at the end of 1950 s,the partial introduction in some provinces in the 1970 s and 1980 s,the universalization of the century and the gradual abolition since this century.becoming common in 1990 s and the gradual termination after 2002.The alternation of birth spacing policies reflects the change and evolution of the government's understanding of birth spacing as a policy tool.It also reflects the increasing respect and gradual improvements in the protection of reproductive rights.As the eligible group of having a second birth and the timing requirements is formulated by provinces,autonomous regions,municipalities directly under the central government and municipalities with regional autonomy,the birth spacing requirements vary not only in content,but also in the timing and the direction of adjustments across provinces.The minimum legal child-bearing age and spacing requirements for sedond birth are highly diversified,and the spacing requirements reviced frequently over time,which further strengthen the provincial differentials.There are not only the "time sequence" of adopting,adjusting and termination the spacing policy,but also the "different minimum length" of the interval requirements and the different groups who were free of birth spacing requirements.The same reproductive behavior of giving a second birth birth in different regions and different periods of time are subject to diversified regulations.The birth spacing policy plays a historical role in regulating the people's fertility behaviors and reducing the population growth.Based on the data analysis of the 120 counties population monitoring system in 2013,the second birth interval has experienced long-term stability before the 1990 s,continuous increase from 1990 to 2005 and slow decline from 2006 to the present.As more and more provinces set the birth spacing,the rising trend of the second birth interval becomes increasingly significant.The second birth interval gradually declined since 2005 as a result of the alternation or cancellation of birth spacing policies.In addition.during the period from 1990 to 2005,The composition of second birth interval changes dramatically after the implementation of family planning policy.And,for women born between 1940 and 1970,the later born cohort,the lower possibility of having a second child and longer time length to finish the second child birth progress.Apparent differences are also observed for women in urban and rural,different ethnic groups,education background,and the sexes of first birth regarding to the possibility of having a second child and time length to finish the second birth progress.In addition,this paper provides information for the new features of second birth interval distribution in the latest decade,while showing the fertility behavior transition of the second birth for the generation born after 1980 as a reference to better understand the second birth behavior in new period.How birth spacing policies influence second birth rate and how the impact varies by birth spacing policy context across China are one of the main themes of this investigation.We cover the second birth behavior in 13 Chinese provinces based on the 120 counties population dynamics monitoring system.We take the year of policy change as time t,then compare period fertility indictors at year(t-1)and the year(t+3)for each period to gain a deeper understanding of the policy effect.The comparisons of period fertility indictors of different periods demonstrate the positive contribution of loosening birth spacing policy on TFR2 and PPR12 increases,the significant effects of introduction and tightening birth spacing policy on TFR2 and PPR12 decline.The 10-year fixed PPR12 clearly evidenced how various birth spacing policies lead to different distribution of second births with fixed birth interval and how policy-driven birth spacing patterns developed.The PPR12-10 curve transited from left-skewed before/at the initial stage of birth spacing introduction to right-skewed after universal stable enforcement then again skewed to left after the modifications and final cancelation.Women concentrated their childbearing at two-year interval before/at the initial stage of birth spacing introduction,then concentrate at/after the mandatory birth interval,then shifted back to two years interval after the cancelation of birth spacing policy.Our study contributes to the demographic literature that aims at understanding the birth spacing pattern of China.Furthermore,we draw attention to the role of birth spacing policies in explaining provincial differences in fertility behavior and second birth postponement across time in China.This study also contributes to the research on the childbearing postponement in China.At present,most studies on birth postponement in China focus on the first birth.The enforcement of marriage and fertility timing policies since 1990 brought about a massive postponement of both first and second births and lengthening of the second birth interval,leading to a temporary sharp fall in period TFR to extreme low levels in the mid-1990 s.The birth timing policies also led to a strong concentration of childbearing into a narrow age interval just after the mandatory minimum ages at first and second birth.Later,policy relaxations resulted in period fertility upswings.The main effect of birth timing policies was in fuelling instability in period fertility rates during the 1990 s and 2000 s.After the policies changes since 2000,the second-child birth rate has rebounded.Due to the diversified birth spacing policy,the birth timing of the second child in each province has resulted in different degree of reproduction delay of second birth.After the elimination of the birth spacing policy,the second birth interval became shorter and the peak birth interval gradually returned to 2 years,proving once again that people's birth timing arrangement is subject to external institutional constraints during the implementation of the birth spacing policy,and once the external constraints are removed,the birth timing decision is more independent,the scope of the involuntary birth postponement somewhat became weaken.At present,the fertility in most Province is still unstable and there are many factors that further strengthen the voluntary postponement of childbearing,and will further negatively affect the period fertility.This study also reveals the homogeneity and Heterogeneity of inter-provincial birth spacing policies over different periods.By using the interval-based progression ratio from the first to second birth,this study not only demonstrates the concentration trend of second births in different periods,but also provides the discrete distribution of second births by different intervals.It presents more comprehensively the progressive probability and progress of the second birth under the different birth spacing policy in different periods and across provinces,revealing the regional and temporal differences caused by these spacing policies.It enriches the relevant understanding of the birth spacing pattern and its changing law,and deepens the understanding of the role of birth spacing policy changes in China's fertility transition.It also proves the role of birth spacing policy in explaining the inter-provincial differences of birth behavior in China.Today Chinese people are delaying their marriage and childbearing in both urban and rural areas across the country as they have much stronger self-control over childbearing.The influence power and the room for the fertility limitation policy to work on is decreasing.Terminating birth spacing policy not only reflects the human orientation of population policy,but also shows full respect to the rational and autonomous choice of reproductive-age population and contributes to their physical and mental health.Concerns over birth spacing must be considered in the policy framework on its impacts on population health.It's suggested to start with assuring population health,underline the impacts of birth spacing on maternal and child health and population quality,advocate the optimal birth interval of 2-3 years,pay focused attention to the needs of couples favoring excessively long birth interval in the face of the "Universal Two-Child Policy",and provide the corresponding public administration and services.