Marital decision-making and the timing of first birth in rural China before the 1990s

Abstract

Using a sample of couples drawn from the three provinces of Guangdong, Shandong, and Shaanxi, we investigated whether couples’ increasing freedom to choose whom to marry influenced the timing of first birth in rural China during the four decades before the 1990s. The shortening of first-birth intervals in the period is found to be associated with the shift from arranged to free-choice marriages. The association is attributed largely to increased intimacy and coital frequency after marriage together with postponement of age at first marriage.

Keywords:

• marital decision-making
• timing of first birth
• rural China

Notes

1. Ying Hong is at the Sociology Department, Stockholm University, SE-10691, Sweden, and the Swedish Institute for Future Studies. E-mail: [email protected]

2. The author is grateful to the Institute of Population and Labor Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for providing the survey data used in this study, and also wishes to thank Jan Hoem, Zeng Yi, Elizabeth Thomson, and the anonymous referees of Population Studies for their helpful comments.