When Do Traditional Fertility Motivations Matter? Policy Constraints and the Limits of Pronatalism in China

• In Event: Sociology of Population Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4. Fertility Dynamics

Abstract

Do traditional family values drive fertility? Governments across the world assume they do, invoking filial duty and lineage continuation as the motivational engine of pronatalist policy. This paper tests that assumption using longitudinal data from China (CFPS 2014–2022, N = 2,051), exploiting variation created by the 2016 shift to a universal two-child policy. We argue that traditional motivations constitute latent readiness rather than unconditional behavioral drives: they predict fertility when structural opportunity is present, but lie dormant when it is not. In the full sample, traditional motivation shows no significant effect on new childbearing (OR = 0.68, p = .117). Among those directly affected by the policy shift — respondents with exactly one child and aged 35 or younger in 2014 — traditional motivation measured two years prior significantly predicts new childbearing (OR = 2.42, p = .007; AME = +0.111, p = .037). A placebo test confirms the effect is specific to traditional, not emotional, motivations. These findings suggest that pronatalist strategies invoking traditional values will remain ineffective without the structural conditions that allow those values to be acted upon.

Author

• Xiaoxu Yang, Louisiana State University