现金补贴抑或托幼服务?欧洲家庭政策的生育效应探析

Cash Subsidy or Childcare Service?An Analysis of the Fertility Effect of European Family Policy

本文基于欧洲社会调查和经济合作与发展组织家庭数据库的整合资料,运用多层二项回归探析欧洲15个国家的宏观家庭政策对微观生育决策的影响。研究发现,具有“去家庭化”性质的托幼服务对欧洲家庭生育决策存在显著的正向影响,而具有“家庭化”性质的现金补贴并未产生预期的作用。进一步的交互项与稳健性检验结果表明,年纪较轻或收入较高的父母是托幼服务政策影响的重点人群,且托幼服务与母亲带薪假在一定程度上形成合力促进再生育决策。这表明,欧洲家庭政策影响生育的作用机制主要是照料方式改变的替代效应,而非经济能力提升的收入效应。本研究的政策启示在于,未来我国与生育配套的家庭政策体系构建,应注重在婴幼儿照料和托幼服务上的制度设计与资源投入。

From the 2009-2014 OECD Household Expenditure Database and the 2014 European Social Survey Database,this study generates a new set of integrated macro and micro data(non-longitudinal).A multi-level binomial regression model is applied to explore the impact of macro-family policies on micro-fertility decision-making in fifteen European countries.Our research emphasizes the importance of theoretical perspective and focuses on the specific policy measures that are related to the two distinctively different policy values of“family-oriented”and“de-family-oriented”.The empirical results find that the“de-family-oriented”childcare services have a significant positive impact on the birth decisions of European families,while the“family-oriented”cash subsidies have not produced the expected significant effect.This study further examines the differential impact of family policies on different groups of people,focusing on the effects of gender,age,education,and income.The results reveal that couples of younger age or higher incomes are most affected on birth decisions by childcare services.This study also verifies the robustness of the data and introduces into the model additional variables such as the allocation ratio of childcare services and cash subsidies,their proportion in GDP,and paid leave.It reveals that childcare services and paid maternity leave form a policy synergy in promoting family reproductive decision-making to a certain extent.This suggests that the effectiveness of European family policy for promoting fertility lies on the changes in service delivery of childcare,rather than on direct cash subsidy.There is a policy implication for China’s future family policy.Our future emphasis should be placed on the institutional design and resource investment in infant and child care services.