An Analysis On The Discrepancy Between Fertility Intention And Behavior

In recent years, the census data and the1%sample data shows that China’s birthrate has been below replacement level for a long time, but due to the inertia of thepopulation, China’s total population is still growing. The two co-exist of the low birthrate and the increasing of the population makes the adjustment of China’s familyplanning policy in a dilemma. The future level of fertility is the fundamental basis forpolicy formulation. Fertility intentions and fertility behavior is directly related to, butempirical research has found that the discrepancy between fertility intentions andfertility behavior is exist, so the fertility intention will not be directly used to predictthe level of fertility. Therefore, the study of the relationship between fertility intentionand behavior deviated is of great theoretical and policy implications.This paper regards the family as the basic unit, demonstrates the regression withno intercept can effectively measure the deviation of fertility intention and fertilitybehavior, but because of the differences in the personal fertility desire and familyfertility desire, there will be a bias by using personal fertility desire instead of familydesire. The paper shows that by calculating the correlation coefficient of the couple’sfertility desire can effectively correct the bias. Through an empirical research of agroup of Beijing household data, results show that there is a slight departure betweenthe fertility desire and fertility behavior, fertility behavior is lower than the fertilitydesire. Finally, combining theoretical and empirical results of this paper, I put forwardpolicy recommendations and research prospects.