Pricing Children, Curbing Daughters: Fertility and the Sex-Ratio During China's One-Child Policy

Abstract

I provide the first empirical characterization of China’s One-Child Policy as it actually occurred: It was an individually tailored, age-specific pricing system allowing women to have more than one child. I exploit within-woman variation to identify the impact of the policy. The policy decreased the number of daughters that women had; it did not impact the number of sons. Data on abortions and ultrasound-technology availability support this finding. The policy impacted fertility throughout the period 1979-2000. Without the policy, the total fertility rate and average daughter-to-son ratio would have been 2.2 and 0.9 in 2000. Instead, they were 1.5 and 0.8.