Jobs and Kids: Female Employment and Fertility in China

Stanford University presents a discussion with Professor Hai Fang on how female off-farm employment affects fertility in China.

Hai Fang
Associate Professor, Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy, University of Colorado Denver

Hai Fang will describe recent research with Karen Eggleston, John Rizzo, and Richard Zeckhauser, that uses data on 2,355 married women from the 2006 China Health and Nutrition Survey to study how female off-farm employment affects fertility in China.  China has deep concerns with both population size and female employment, so the relationship between the two should be understood. Causality flows in both directions; hence, we use a well-validated instrumental variable to isolate the effect of employment on fertility. Female off-farm employment reduces a married woman’s preferred number of children by 0.35 on average and her actual number by 0.50.   Ramifications for China’s one-child policy are discussed.

Hai Fang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy at the University of Colorado Denver, and a Research Associate in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics and Master of Public Health from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2006. Before joining the University of Colorado Denver, he taught at the University of California Davis and the University of Miami. His research interests include health economics, labor economics, and public health.

RSVP required by 5PM February 22