The rising child penalty in China

Female university students’ fertility intentions and their psychosocial factors

“…Our findings show that the level of feminist identity has a significant negative effect on both the child-number desires and intensity of desire to have children. A growing amount of research has shown that motherhood penalties can cause mothers to experience disadvantages in terms of pay, benefits, and development opportunities due to childbearing [ 42 – 44 ], a situation that is more common in China [ 45 – 47 ], and that traditionalist fertility motivations that emphasise family interests and relationships have given way to individualist fertility motivations that emphasise personal emotional satisfaction, and which reinforces the notions of “having children for oneself” and “having fewer children later in life”, which are more likely to hinder the steady increase in fertility [ 48 , 49 ]. A similar logic applies to the level of feminist identity: women with higher levels of feminist identity tend to delay marriage and childbearing while pursuing their careers, and the increasing opportunity costs discourage their fertility intentions [ 50 , 51 ].…”

Female university students’ fertility intentions and their psychosocial factors: a cross-sectional survey in Nanjing, China

“…Our findings show that the level of feminist identity has a significant negative effect on both the child-number desires and intensity of desire to have children. A growing amount of research has shown that motherhood penalties can cause mothers to experience disadvantages in terms of pay, benefits, and development opportunities due to childbearing [42][43][44], a situation that is more common in China [45][46][47], and that traditionalist fertility motivations that emphasise family interests and relationships have given way to individualist fertility motivations that emphasise personal emotional satisfaction, and which reinforces the notions of "having children for oneself" and "having fewer children later in life", which are more likely to hinder the steady increase in fertility [48,49].A similar logic applies to the level of feminist identity: women with higher Model Assumptions…”

The Three-child Policy and Its Positive Impacts on Female Labor Engagement in China

“…Such opportunity cost is also known as the motherhood penalty, or how much a woman's labor participation and income reduce after giving birth to a child [11]. Naturally, when women are giving birth to more children and investing more time in childcare, the severeness of such penalty increases [2]. Consequently, based on the rationale of 20 th century models, if the three-child policy increases the fertility rate and thus the motherhood penalty of women in China, labor engagement would decrease accordingly just as the current literature suggests.…”

“…The childcare market is also very developed in China, with the number of nannies consistently rising from 25 to 30 million during 2015-2020 [13]. Thirdly, the increased availability of public kindergartens as well as the free childcare services offered by stateowned enterprises also allows women to raise children without investing too much time outside of labor [2]. These factors combined means that fertility poses a much smaller burden for women who want to participate in the labor and invest in their career.…”

“…Female labor participation rate has been steadily falling in China from 1990 to 2021, decreasing from 73.02% to 61.61% in only 3 decades [1]. While the difference between male and female labor engagement in China continues to increase, such difference is beginning to reduce in numerous other countries [2]. With the implementation of the three-child policy in July 2021, many worry that women's role in the Chinese labor market will be further diminished due to the tradeoff between fertility and labor commitment, worsening the already lowered female labor engagement [3][4][5].…”