| With the declining birth rate of Chinese and the crisis of the low birth trap has quietly arrived,at present,the implemented two-child and three-child policy has failed to achieve the expected results,and the future population structure is facing the risk of imbalance,and the problems of aging population and insufficient supply in the labor market will follow.The main reason for the low fertility rate is that the current family’s willingness to have children is declining,and the relationship between parenting cost and fertility intention as an important factor affecting family fertility decision-making is worth exploring and studying.Therefore,based on the cost utility theory and the new family economics theory,this paper empirically measures the actual parenting cost of ordinary families in China and explores its relationship with fertility intention,in order to provide an effective reference for the formulation of fertility policy and the construction of socialized sharing mechanism of parenting cost.In this paper,the parenting cost is divided into direct parenting cost and indirect parenting cost,and the direct cost and indirect cost are calculated separately by summary measurement algorithm,equivalent scale method and fixed panel effect.Firstly,based on the "China Statistical Yearbook" and "China Education Finance Household Survey Report(2019)",the direct parenting costs of urban residents and rural residents in various provinces and regions in China in 2017 were calculated through the summary measurement algorithm,and the direct parenting costs of families were high in the east and low in the west,and high in the south and low in the north.Secondly,the equivalence scale method and CFPS 2018 data were used to calculate the proportion of parenting costs to household expenditure for children with different births.The calculation results show that the equivalent scales of fertility costs for giving birth to one,second and third children are 1.618,1.438 and 1.348,respectively.This shows that when the number of adults in the family is consistent,the average cost of child-rearing for two-child families is 18% lower than that of onechild families,while the average child-rearing cost for three-child families is 9%lower than that for second-child families.Finally,the CFPS cross-sectional data from2010 to 2018 were matched by families,couples and children through the fixed panel effect model,and plotted into panel data for measurement,and the results showed that the marginal effect of raising an average child on family wage income was roughly9.5%,that is,for each additional child raised,the family should reduce the family wage income by 9.5%.It can be seen that the cost of family parenting in China has reached a high level,which seriously affects the decision-making of various family activities.Then,in order to further explore the influence of parenting cost on fertility intention,this paper constructs an ordered logistic model and empirically analyzes CFPS 2018 data.The empirical results show that parenting cost has a significant impact on fertility intention,and the two are obviously negatively correlated,and subsequent heterogeneity analysis shows that parenting cost has a significant inhibitory effect on the fertility intention of both couples in the family,and this conclusion can pass the robustness test.Therefore,how to reduce the cost of family parenting to increase residents’ willingness to have children has become the key to solving the low fertility rate.Finally,based on the primary goal of reducing parenting costs,this paper proposes to construct a socialized sharing mechanism for parenting costs,puts forward the problems existing in the current national social mechanism and the future implementation path through theoretical logic and practical basis,and puts forward feasible suggestions from the aspects of family,government and society. |
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