Are Chinese Parents Willing to Have a Second Child? Investigation on the Ideal and Realistic Fertility Willingness of Different Income Family

ABSTRACT

ResearchFindings: This study investigates the ideal and realistic second-child fertility willingness of Chinese parents and the associated factors. Altogether 4,510 Chinese parents of only-child (ages 3–6 years) were sampled and surveyed online. The descriptive and logistic regression analyses indicated that: (1) about 74.1% of the parents were ideally willing to have two children and preferred a female second-child, but less than one-third of them reported having definite fertility intentions and plans; (2) the ideal pattern of second-child fertility willingness was positively associated with family income, whereas a V-shaped relationship was found between fertility intentions and plans and family income levels after realistic consideration; (3) the child-rearing pressure has caused a gap between the ideal and realistic perspectives of fertility willingness, with parental fertility beginning to transition toward a contemporary individual preference-centered orientation. Practice or Policy: The findings imply that policy attention should be paid to the pressure and needs of family fertility by linking fertility policies with providing adequate support to parents.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was fully funded by the Major Project of National Social Science Fund of China (Project #: 17ZDA123).