不同生育政策背景下子女成年期生命质量的影响因素及其机制——基于2008年中国综合社会调查资料的回溯研究

The Impact of Fertility Control Policy in Different Stages on Children’s Quality of Life in Adulthood:Relationship and Mechanism

生命质量是人们对自身健康状况的综合体验,生育政策对子女成年期生命质量有重要影响。中国计划生育政策总体上推动并起到"以量换质"的作用,但其影响机制在计划生育政策执行不同时期、子女数量不同家庭中(独生家庭、单兄妹家庭、多兄妹家庭)存在条件性差异。随着政策执行强度的逐步增加,生育政策推动下家庭中子女重要程度上升,促使家庭社会经济资源向子女人力资本代际转化,"资源稀释"机制影响逐渐增加。在未实行全国范围的计划生育政策时期,不同家庭子女生命质量无明显差异;在"晚稀少"政策实行时期,多兄妹子女与独生子女的生命质量差异拉开,资源稀释理论出现中介效应;"一孩政策"时期,无论是单兄妹子女、多兄妹子女都与独生子女存在明显差异,生育政策背景下的资源稀释效应日益凸显。研究基于医学社会学理论框架,证实了该机制政策造成的条件性差异。政策诱导的"以量换质"效应,通过放大成长期家庭社会经济因素对其成年期生命质量的影响而实现,是一种"未被预料的后果"。

Quality of life(i.e.,QOL)refers to individual’s comprehensive perception of health condition.China’s fertility control policies influence the quality of life of children in their later adulthood by increasing the significance of children in the family context and stimulating the intergenerational human capital investment.In general,the trade-off effect induced by the policy has been shown in our survey data.However,for children whose families have different family size(categorized into family with one,two and more than three children)and who are born in different time periods(i.e.,the pre-nationwide policy,two-child policy and the one-child policy period),the impact of the abovementioned underlying mechanism varies.The disparity in the QOL enlarged as the enforcement of the fertility control policy gradually became stricter.Research demonstrates that before any nation-wide fertility control policy was implemented,no health disparities occur among families of different size;Nevertheless,during the 1970 s’two-child policy period,the gap of QOL between singletons and children with one sibling remains insignificant,while the QOL of children with multi-siblings are found much worse than that of the singletons.The mediation effect of family Socio-economic status(SES)accounts for the differences.After the one-child policy was implemented,the family SES at the age of 14 completely mediates the impact of family size on the quality of life among families of various size.Drawing on a medical sociology framework,our analysis shed light on the conditional effect of"resource dilution"theory and the policy’s effect on the intergenerational transmission of health disparity as an unintended consequence in China.