The impact of institutional reform from 1979 through 1987 on fertility in rural China
利用1979-1987年中国农村家庭联产承包责任制改革的地方时间数据，结合深入生育调查，发现改革后生育率在1982-1984年略有上升，但在1985-1987年下降，并分析了改革通过提高生育成本和促进劳动力流动等机制影响生育决策。
This empirical study brings together data on the local timing of the rural household responsibility system (HRS) reforms in China from 1979 through 1987 and assesses the association of the local reforms with individual parity-specific fertility changes as measured in the in-depth fertility survey. Fertility appears to have increased slightly in 1982 through 1984, but declined in 1985 through 1987, in the wake of these significant economic reforms. It is hypothesized that the reforms increased the private monetary and opportunity cost of childbearing and intensified market competition for the adoption of new production technologies that encouraged parents to educate their children better, while increasing the mobility of the rural labor force and thereby discouraging and delaying childbearing among rural Chinese.