The Analysis Of The Relationship Between Couples' Fertility Desire And Behavior

Fertility desire is the subjective expectation and intention reflecting people's own fertility behavior and outcome,which acts as an important indicator to adjust the fertility policy and predict the fertility level.In the context of Chinese traditional patriarchy,women are bound to be tools for family succession,without having the same right of speech in reproductive decisions as men.However,with the rise of female social status,fertility decisions have no longer been dominated by husbands.The consistency of couple's fertility desire is the precondition of fertility behavior,nevertheless,there are great differences in fertility desire between husband and wife to some extent due to factors such as education level,family background and work experience.Current domestic research on fertility desire mainly commence on the perspective of individual women,suggesting family fertility desire is equivalent to that of women,which is absolutely biased according to actual situation.Therefore,in the use of micro-data,the quantitative analysis based on the perspective of both husband and wife will be more helpful to comprehend the influential mechanism of actual family fertility behavior.Based on the data of China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)in 2014 and 2016,this paper uses the method of husband and wife matching to describe the characteristics of couples' fertility desire,to analyze the influence of husband and wife's fertility desire on the family's actual fertility behavior,and to discuss the influence of different or consistent fertility desire on the actual fertility behavior of the family.The study reveals that there is a discrepancy in husband and wife's fertility desire,nearly28.76% inconsistent.The couple's fertility desire has a significant positive effect on the family fertility behavior,which means couples with the same fertility desire can inhibit or promote the realization of actual fertility,while couples with inconsistent fertility desire have inhibitory effect on fertility behavior.Low fertility desire of eitherspouse has a significant negative impact on the fertility behavior of the family.When couple's desire couldn't reach a consistency,husbands play a more important role in reproductive decisions than wives,that is to say,the actual fertility behavior is more in line with the husband's fertility desire.In conclusion,couple's fertility desire plays an important role in the process of family fertility decision.Focusing on the fertility desire of only one spouse cannot fully reflect the actual fertility desire of the family.Under the circumstance of Confucian culture and traditional patriarchy,the fertility desire of husband should not be ignored in the process of predicting fertility behavior,and extra attention needs to be paid to fertility desire at the conjugal level.This study provides a couple-level explanation for correctly predicting fertility behavior in China,delivering an enlightening significance to the construction of a family-friendly society in China.