生育需求、婚姻匹配与夫妻初婚年龄差距——来自中国城乡家庭的研究

Fertility,Marriage Patterns and Husband-wife Age Gap——A Study of Chinese Urban and Rural Families

本文建立两时期婚姻搜寻模型,用以解释在性别间存在可生育年龄生理差异的基础上生育意愿对男性与女性婚姻搜寻行为以及婚姻匹配模式产生的影响。在此基础上,采用CHNS(1993)抽样调查的微观家庭数据,通过构建两个计量模型从微观和宏观两个层面来分析生育率对婚姻匹配模式的影响。首先运用CHNS微观家庭数据对家庭层面中孩子数量与夫妻年龄差距之间的联系进行实证研究,对农村家庭的回归结果显示孩子数量与夫妻的年龄差距具有显著的关系,具体而言,家庭中每多1个孩子,夫妻间的年龄差距也随之扩大0.27年。其次从宏观的角度运用Difference in Difference(DID)的方法来分析生育政策对婚姻匹配模式产生的冲击效应,实证分析计划生育政策实施后生育率的变化对我国城乡地区婚姻匹配产生的影响。实证结果显示计划生育政策实施以后生育率出现了下降,家庭的生育需求受到抑制,造成了政策实施后夫妻初婚年龄差距的下降。在生育需求受到计划生育政策影响更大的农村地区中夫妻初婚年龄差距随着生育率的快速下降出现了更为显著的缩小。研究结果表明生育需求是影响婚姻匹配模式的一个重要因素,计划生育政策实施后生育率的变化对我国城乡地区夫妻初婚年龄差距产生了显著的影响。

This paper builds a two-period marriage matching model based on the different fecundity horizon between the male and female to analyze the connection between fertility and the marriage patterns. By using household data of the CNHS 1993 survey,this paper builds two econometric model to analyze the influence of the fertility rate on marriage patterns from the micro and macro views. Firstly,we analyze the relationship between the number of children and first marriage age gap between husbands and wives. The empirical results show that fecundity differences between husband and wife can lead to the age differences.The demand of children has a positive effect on the husband-wife age gap,the gradient between fertility and the husband-wife age gap is about 0.27 in rural families. Moreover,we use the method of DID to analyze the impact of one-child policy on the marriage matching model in urban and rural areas in the empirical work. The result shows that,after implementation of one-child policy,fertility rates fell and the family of fertility demand has been restrained,resulting in a decline in the first marriage age gap between husband and wife. In rural areas,the first marriage age gap of husband and wife significantly narrowed with the fast falling of the fertility rates. Our study result shows that the desire for children is an important factor to affect the husband-wife age gap. The change of fertility rates have a significant influence on marriage pattern both in rural and urban China.