Childbearing intention and childbearing behavior in low fertility society: evidence from Shanghai

Exploring the patterns of population change under low fertility is a historical mis­sion for demographic research in the 21st century.Taking Shanghai as an example,this paper discusses the new patterns and characteristics of people’s childbearing intention and behavior under low fertility settings.The results show that Shanghai,as a typical society with ultra-low fertility,people’s childbearing intention and be­havior demonstrate the characteristics such as“downward inconsistency”between childbearing intention and childbearing behavior,“convergence”of childbearing intention and childbearing behavior between different sub-groups,“inversion”in childbearing intention and childbearing behavior with education and income,and the“decoupling”between marriage and childbearing.The childbearing intention and behavior of low fertility society as seen in the case of Shanghai show the pat­terns as somehow different from what was observed in a high fertility society.It suggests that many of the childbearing patterns shown in the high-fertility era may not necessarily be applicable in low fertility settings,and urges more research to be carried out in this regard.

Ideal and actual childbearing in China: number, gender and timing

This paper uses a cross-temporal meta-analysis to summarize information about the ideal number of children,gender composition,and timing of childbirths during the years 1980-2015 in China.This allows a comparison between ideas about the ideal number of children and actual childbearing behavior.The results show that fertility and the ideal number of children both decreased,but that fertility was higher than the ideal number of children before 1990,and that fertility was lower than the ideal number of children thereafter.Gender preference weakened;however,the preference for sons decreased slowly.The timing of childbearing became significantly later over the study period,while the ideal age of childbearing remained relatively stable.The findings provide evidence to aid understanding of the changes in childbearing in China.

The fear of having two sons:a noteworthy preference for the gender of children

This paper argues that“the fear of having two sons”is a gender structure phenom-enon that causes anxiety for some Chinese families.To prove the existence of such a fear in some families,this paper considers three aspects:the ideal gender structure of children,women’s childbearing plan for second children and their actual child-bearing behavior.Data for nine provinces is taken from the China Fertility Survey of 2017.This paper finds that:(1)except for having no children,2 sons and 0 daughters is the most undesired gender structure;(2)among those who expect 1 son and 1 daughter,women whose first child is a son are less likely to plan to have a second child than those whose first child is a daughter;(3)among those who expect 1 son and 1 daughter,women with a son as the first child are less likely to have a second child than those with a daughter.These findings prove that,at present,the phenom-enon of the fear of having two sons does exist in some Chinese families.Finally,this paper summarizes how the attitudes of Chinese families towards having sons have changed since the 1950s from“a hope for having many sons”to“a desire for at least one son”and finally to“the fear of having two sons.”The paper also discusses the significance of the fear of having two sons phenomenon in terms of improving the proximate determinants of low fertility model.