摘要
随着中国进入以成本约束驱动为主导的低生育率阶段,育儿成本对生育选择的影响受到关注。但大量研究局限于分析经济成本的影响,忽略了时间成本。随着育儿观念的变化,越来越多的父母认识到育儿质量的重要性,进而更重视父母陪伴和家庭育儿时间。因而,分析育儿经济支出和育儿时间对生育选择的影响才能准确把握现代女性生育选择的重要影响因素,进而提出更具针对性的政策建议。对育儿成本的准确估计成为分析育儿成本影响的关键,然而基于已生育群体的育儿支出直接预测未生育群体的育儿成本时,生育的自选择问题可能导致严重的估计偏差。本文基于2018年中国流动人口动态监测调查(CMDS)和2020年中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据,应用Heckman两步法回归女性育儿经济支出和育儿时间方程,消除生育自选择带来的样本选择偏差,并基于模型回归结果预测未生育女性的潜在育儿经济支出和育儿时间,进而分析育儿经济支出和育儿时间对女性生育选择的影响。研究结果表明:育儿经济支出的增加使女性二孩生育概率显著下降,育儿时间的增加使女性一孩生育和二孩生育概率均显著下降;随着女性受教育程度的提高,育儿经济支出对其生育选择的负向影响增大,育儿时间的负向影响减小。异质性分析的结果表明:相比于非灵活就业群体和超时劳动群体,在灵活就业群体和严重超时劳动群体中,育儿时间对女性生育选择的负向影响更小,表明工作时间调整灵活性的提升有助于降低育儿时间对生育选择的限制;同时,拥有较多自由时间的适度劳动群体的生育选择不受育儿时间的影响,表明工作时间减少可以降低育儿时间的约束作用。因此,政府部门应在进一步提供更加全面的育儿保障服务,减轻女性育儿的经济和时间负担的同时,通过对雇用生育女性的企业给予税收优惠或直接经济补贴等政策促进企业为生育女性提供工作时间更加灵活的工作条件;通过为生育女性保留工作岗位、提供专门晋升通道等降低生育对女性职业发展的阻碍作用;通过促进家庭内部育儿分工的重构,增加男性育儿时间等降低女性育儿成本,进而促进生育率提升。
As China enters a low-fertility stage driven by cost constraints,the impact of childcare costs on fertility choices has received attention,but a large number of studies have been limited to analyzing the impact of economic costs,ignoring time costs.With the changing concept of childcare,more and more parents recognize the importance of childcare quality,which in turn places more value on parental accom⁃paniment and family childcare time.Thus,analyzing the impact of the economic cost of childcare and the time spent on childcare on fertility choices separately is the only way to accurately grasp the important influences on modern women’s fertility choices,and then make more targeted policy recommendations.Accurate estimation of childcare costs becomes the key to analyzing the impact of childcare costs,yet the self-selection problem of childbearing makes a direct prediction of childcare costs for the childless group based on childcare expenditures of the childbearing group likely to lead to serious estimation bias.In this paper,based on data from the 2018 China Migrants Dynamic Survey(CMDS)and the 2020 China Family Panel Studies(CFPS),we apply the Heckman two-step method to regress the equations of women’s economic expenditures on childcare and childcare time,to eliminate the sample selection bias caused by self-selection of childbearing,and predict the economic expenditures on childcare and childcare time of women who have not yet given birth based on the regression results of the model,and then analyze the impact of economic expenditures on childcare and childcare time on women’s fertility choices.The results of the study show that an increase in economic expenditures on childcare leads to a significant decrease in the probability of women having a second child,and an increase in childcare time leads to a significant decrease in the probability of women having both a first child and a second child;as women’s education level increases,the negative effect of economic expenditures on childcare on their fertility choices increases,and the negative effect of childcare time decreases.The results of the heterogeneity analysis show that the negative impact of childcare time on women’s fertility choices is smaller in the flexible employment group with more flexible working time adjustment and the severe overtime labor group compared to the inflexible employment group and the overtime labor group,indicating that the increased flexibility of work⁃ing time adjustment helps to reduce the restriction of childcare time on fertility choices;at the same time,the fertility of the moderate labor group with more free time choices are not affected by childcare hours,suggesting that reduced working hours can reduce the constraining effect of childcare hours.Therefore,government departments should,while further providing more comprehensive childcare protection services to reduce the economic and time burden of childcare for women,promote enterprises to provide more flexible employment conditions for women with more flexible working hours through tax concessions or direct economic subsidies for enterprises employing women with childbearing,reduce the obstacles of childbearing to women’s career development through reserving jobs for women with childbearing and providing special promotion channels for them,and reduce the effects of childbearing on women’s career development through the provision of special promotion channels for them.The obstacles to women’s career development are reduced by reserving jobs for women who give birth and providing special promotion channels,etc.,and the costs of women’s childcare are reduced by promoting the restructuring of the division of childcare within the family and increasing men’s childcare time,thus promoting the increase of the fertility rate.
作者
郭凤鸣
李慧艳
GUO Fengming;LI Huiyan(Center for Quantitative Economics,Jilin University,Changchun Jilin,130012,China;School of Business and Management,Jilin University,Changchun Jilin,130012,China)
出处
《人口学刊》
CSSCI
北大核心
2024年第4期37-52,共16页
Population Journal
基金
教育部青年基金项目:低生育背景下性别失衡的婚姻挤压效应及传导机制研究(22YJC840020)。
关键词
育儿时间
育儿经济支出
生育选择
育儿成本
Parenting Time
Parenting Economic Expenditure
Fertility Choice
Parenting Cost
