This journal is one of the earliest journals on population science in China. It is issued worldwide and indexed by CSSCI, and it is listed as the national Chinese core periodicaland the core periodical on population science.
Editor-in-Chief Yu Xiao
Deputy Editor-in-Chief Wang Xiaofeng, Wang Huabo
Editorial Board Wang Guangzhou, Wang Jinying, Yi Hao, Tian Yipeng, Sun Changzhi, Zhu Yu, Zhang Shiwei, Qiu Hong, Lu Jiehua, Chen Yingzi, Li Shuzhuo, Fan Lida, Yang Chenggang, Yang
Since the second-child policy was fully liberalized, we have not seen the expected birth peak. The existing literature mainly analyzes the reasons for the decline of fertility willingness from the aspects of education, income, family, and demographic characteristics, but ignores the important concern that people would be likely to lower their children’s education level after giving birth to a second child. In order to empirically test the impact of the second birth of the child on the education level of the child, empirical research is conducted based on the CFPS baseline survey data by using instrumental variable estimation methods. The results show that there is no statistically significant effect on the level of education of the second child. This conclusion is validated through a series of robustness tests. In the empirical analysis, through data reorganization, not only the sample size is expanded, but also the limitations of the former study including sibling living together are overcome, and the structural effects of the siblings are controlled. Compared with existing instrumental variables such as twins and one-child policy, using the gender of the first child as an instrumental variable helped to find that the first child for women significantly increases the likelihood of the n-th birth (n>2) , and it is evident that the gender of the first child is not influenced by human intervention. The results are more reliable in terms of internal effectiveness and external effectiveness and the conclusions drawn by the paper may expand the traditional resource dilution hypothesis from two aspects.
With the appearance of late marriage and non-marriage in most industrialized countries in the world, the concept of marriage and love held by the younger generation in China is also undergoing tremendous changes. Against the background of the increasingly serious aging problem in China, it is particularly necessary to investigate the phenomenon of late marriage of individual residents. To this end, the relationship between educational attainment and the age of first marriage was investigated using the data of China Labor-force Dynamic Survey in 2016. The results show that educational attainment has a significant positive effect on the age of first marriage, and for every 1-year increase in education, the age of first marriage is increased by 0.11 years. The conclusion is still valid through the robustness test after changing the measurement method of educational attainment. In consideration of the inaccurate measurement of educational attainment, the possible inverse causality between the age of first marriage and educational attainment, and the possible omission of variables, the two-stage least squares estimation using instrumental variables was conducted to validate the results. Gender-specific studies find that educational attainment has a positive impact on the age of first marriage for women, but not for men. The regression analyses of age-specific samples indicate that the higher the education level is, the younger the age of first marriage tends to be for those born before the 1950s; and for individuals born after the 1950s, the education level has a significant positive effect on the age of first marriage, and the coefficient is increasing. Further analyses of the impact mechanism find that the parents’ educational transmission has a positive impact on their children’s first marriage age through education, and the parents’ agricultural household registration and the number of siblings have a negative impact on their children’s first marriage age through education. In order to alleviate the degree of population aging and promote the healthy development of China’s economy, it is suggested that the state should introduce appropriate policies to reduce the age of first marriage.
The employment income of floating population is affected by the combination of individual endowment factors and regional economic factors. This paper proves this fact by using the hierarchical linear models, and reveals the structural adjustment effect of regional characteristics on the average income level and individual endowment return rate. The results show that more than 10% of the total income difference of China’s floating population comes from regional differences, mainly due to the structural adjustment of urbanization rate, industrial relevance, financial scale, economic openness, public service level, and policy control. Among them, migrants in the areas with high economic openness and high public service levels are more likely to receive higher income from the spillover effects of the two. The age of the floating population and the employment income show an inverted U-shaped curve. The adjustment mechanism of the regional characteristic factors is mainly to change the steepness of the age return curve. Years of education are the most important factor that influences the income of the floating population. Most of the regional characteristics have a significant positive adjustment effect on their rate of return. Due to the intensified competition in the labor market, the advantage of obtaining high incomes for those with longer inflows is not obvious. Gender discrimination and household registration discrimination significantly affect the employment income of migrants, and many factors in developed regions have adjustment effects that further strengthen the impact of discrimination.
There is great significance to study the flow and spatial distribution of Northeast population during the process of urbanization and industrialization. Based on the analysis of the historical evolution process and the development characteristics of urbanization and industrialization in Northeast China, this paper uses the relevant urban data from 1987 to 2015, the PVAR model, the GMM, Granger causality test, impulse response, and other methods to study the relationship between industrialization, urbanization, and population agglomeration in Northeast China. The results show that: the increase in urbanization level has strengthened the influence of the four central cities, Shenyang, Dalian, Changchun and Harbin, which is beneficial for the population of the whole province to gather in four central cities. Under the influence of heavy industry development model and capital-intensive investment tendencies, the increase in the level of industrialization is not conducive to the agglomeration of the province’s population to the four central cities. In addition, the slow marketization process and the influence of the command economy have weakened the cyclical cumulative effect between industrialization and urbanization, resulting in weak interaction between industrialization and urbanization, the duration of which is not long. In further discussion, the static panel data model is used for robustness testing. The findings are consistent with the PVAR model. This article suggests that in the context of the loss of the Northeast population, Northeast region should give full play to the economies of scale and resource clustering advantages of big cities, reasonably arrange the proportion of industry, improve the industrial layout, determine the development relationship between heavy industry and light industry, and promote the development of industrialization to a higher level. In addition, it is necessary to reduce the frictional cost and coordination cost between urbanization and industrialization, and realize the interactive and coordinated development of the two in order to bring the advantages of population agglomeration and drive the development of the Northeast regional economy.
Based on the migration decision-making theory and the investigation data of floating labor in Beijing, this paper explores the influence of informal employment on the floating population’s willingness to settle down by using logistic regressions and propensity score weighting models. The results are as follows. First, the informal employment has a negative influence on the residency intention of migrant labor, and even after controlling the selection biases, there are statistically significant differences of willingness to settle down between the two groups. Second, when there exists selection biases, the regular logistic regression underestimates the average effect of informal employment on willingness to settle down. Third, income has a moderating effect on the influence of informal employment on floating population’s willingness to settle down. For the groups of middle and low income, informal employment has a significantly negative impact on the willingness to settle down; with the increase of income, the negative impact decreases; for the high-income groups, the impact is not significant, and informal employment is no longer the hindrance to their willingness to settle down. Whether floating population is willing to stay in a city for the long term is not only related to the survival and development of floating population, but also to municipal planning and public service of the city as well as the process of urbanization in China. Therefore, it is imperative to break down the barriers of formal and informal employment on the labor market and increase the floating population’s willingness to settle down. Under the condition that the segmentation of labor market system cannot be changed immediately, the government should promote standardized development of informal employment and gradually integrate it into the process of urbanization.
The crisis of aging with lower fertility has occurred in China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea under the dual effects of the increase of life expectancy and the decline of total fertility rate. According to the simplified OLG model and sensitivity analysis of some parameters, the rise of the elderly dependency ratio and the unreasonable setting of the system parameters (i.e., the replacement rate of pension, contribution rate, and retirement age) have gradually led to the unbalance of pension system in these three countries. Under such circumstance, an appropriate adjustment of the pension parameters would be helpful for improving the balance of public pension, alleviating the financial burden of the government, and maintaining the long-term sustainability of public finance. Accordingly, three countries have carried out the structural and parametric reform of pension system. The structure reform of pension system is mainly to build a multi-pillar pension model based on public pension, and gradually expand the proportion of the second pillar (occupational pension). The parametric reform of pension system mainly includes increasing the retirement age, reducing the replacement rate of pension, moderately adjusting and controlling the contribution rate, and expanding the financing channels. The empirical analysis shows that, firstly, the reform of the structure and parameters helps to improve the long-term equilibrium of public pension, and the comprehensive reform of the structural adjustment and optimization of the system parameters should be carried out. Secondly, the reform of the structure and parameters should not only consider the long-term equilibrium of public pension, but also consider its impact on the private savings, the redistribution of income, and the labor market for reducing the side effects of the policy on economic growth. Thirdly, the reform of the structure and parameters should be implemented according to the national conditions, the international standards of social security and other countries’ experience. Some practical policies should be implemented for achieving the Pareto efficiency.
