流动家庭的教育消费会影响生育决策吗?——来自乡—城流动育龄家庭的证据

Does the Educational Consumption of Migrant Families Affect Reproductive Decisions?Evidence from Rural-Urban Migrant Families of Childbearing Age

在低生育率和高教育消费并行的时代背景下,引导流动人口群体释放生育潜力具有重要的政策意义。本文基于2017年的中国乡城人口流动调查数据,探究了乡—城流动育龄家庭的教育消费水平与生育决策间的关系,发现乡—城流动育龄家庭校外教育消费水平较高,样本家庭普遍处于实际生育数量小于理想生育数量的“生育抑制”状态,生育决策较为保守。回归结果显示,教育消费水平对生育决策具有显著的影响,教育消费水平越高,乡—城流动育龄家庭的生育决策越保守,其中校外教育支出对生育决策影响的强度更大,且受教育程度、赡养负担、家庭月工资收入与留守未成年子女数量均会调节教育消费与生育决策间的关系。就影响机制而言,过高的教育消费一方面会推高家庭总支出和挤出其他消费,进而增加流动家庭的经济脆弱性和相对贫困风险,另一方面会引发并积累焦虑情绪和催生消极主观心理,因此育龄群体的客观经济效用和主观心理效用不断降低并打破成本-效用平衡状态,最终促使流动家庭做出保守的生育决策。未来政策需从客观经济效用和主观心理效用入手,以塑造理性的教育理念为核心,引导流动家庭教育消费回归理性,缓解家庭成员的焦虑情绪,重振育龄家庭的养育信心,同时构建教育成本分担网络,搭建生育友好环境,积极回应流动家庭随迁成员的公共服务需求。

In the context of the parallel era of low fertility and high education consumption,it is important to encourage migrant families to unleash fertility potential.Using data from 2017 Rural-Urban Migration in China survey,this paper takes townships and cities migrant Families of childbearing age as the object of study and explores the relationship between educational burdens and fertility decisions of migrant families of child-bearing age by using logit model.It is found that the educational burden of townships and cities migrant families of childbearing age are heavy,and sample families are generally in a state of“fertility suppression”in which the actual number of births is less than the ideal number of births,which means that their fertility decisions are more conservative.The regression results show that educational burdens have an suppress effect on fertility decision and the impact of out-of-school education expenditure on fertility decisions is even greater.What is more,the educational attainment,burdens of expenses for the elderly,monthly family salary income and number of left-behind school age children all regulate the relationship between the burdens of education and the decisions of fertility.In terms of influence mechanisms,on the one hand,excessive education consumption will increase the total household expenditure and reduce other consumption,thus increasing the economic vulnerability and relative poverty risk of migrant families;on the other hand,it will trigger and accumulate anxiety and give rise to negative subjective psychology,which will dissipate the migrant population's expectation for the future life,and thus the objective economic and subjective psychological utility of the childbearing age group will continuously decrease and break the cost-utility equilibrium.As a result,the objective economic utility and subjective psychological utility of the childbearing age group are constantly decreasing and breaking the cost-utility balance,which ultimately prompts the migrant families to make conservative birth decisions.In the future,policies should start from objective economic utility and subjective psychological utility,focus on shaping rational education concepts,guide the education consumption of migrant families to return to rationality,alleviate the anxiety of family members,and revitalize the confidence of childbearing-age families in child-rearing,while at the same time constructing a network of education cost sharing,building a childbearing-friendly environment,and positively responding to the demand for public services of the migrant families’migrating members.