Relationship between Chinese Women's Childhood Family Background and their Fertility Intentions under Different Policy Conditions

This study aimed to explore the relationship between Chinese women's childhood family background and their fertility intentions, including their fertility intentions for a second child under the universal two-child policy, and the ideal fertility intentions under no birth restrictions. Data of participants extracted from the 2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey was adopted for analysis. Zero-inflated Poisson regression and multinomial logistic regression models were used to determine the predictors of women's intended number of children under different policy conditions. The number of siblings and parents' education prove to be significant predictors of female fertility intentions, even controlling for several characteristic variables. The instability of parental marriage shaped female fertility intentions remarkably and made them highly polarized under no conditional or institutional constrains. A cohort effect on female fertility intentions was also identified. Women with better socioeconomic status (SES) and born in families with better economic conditions showed relatively strong childbearing desires.