A Political Demography of Fertility Decline: Future Confidence, Risk Perception, and Reproductive Intentions in China

• In Event: Measuring Politics

Abstract

Fertility rates have plummeted across East Asia. Dominant explanations—including Becker’s economic model, Westoff’s sociological framework, and the Second Demographic Transition—emphasize economic rationality, cultural norms, and gender dynamics, shaping fertility intentions. This study advances a political demography framework, arguing that childbearing refusal increasingly reflects a broader loss of confidence in society and the state’s ability to guarantee a secure future—a reproductive expression of the “lying flat” phenomenon. Using seven waves of the Chinese General Social Survey (2010–2021), we identify a status paradox: current social status is negatively associated with fertility intentions, while confidence in future social status has a consistently positive effect. We attribute this to two mechanisms: individuals’ perceptions of a “risk society” and personal exposure to that perceived risk. Individuals with higher status, income, and education—along with those who are more mobile, unmarried, and have few or no children—show greater capacity and sensitivity in detecting societal risks. Conversely, lower-status individuals respond more slowly to signals of worsening future prospects. To mitigate specification bias in subjective measures, we employ Age–Period–Cohort analysis to isolate temporal shifts in these effects. To triangulate the survey results, we apply machine-learning text analysis to 2.2 million words from Weibo discussions on DINK lifestyles, additional births, and pronatalist pressures. Alongside standard economic, cultural, and gender themes, we find a prominent discourse of youth frustration and depression, supporting the political demography argument. Reversing low fertility, therefore, requires more than economic incentives; it requires restoring systemic confidence in the future.

Authors

• Edmund W Cheng, City University of Hong Kong

• Yuying Tong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Howard H. Wang, City University of Hong Kong