Chinese childbearing decision‐making in mainland China in the post‐one‐child‐policy era

In 2016, China enacted its two-child policy, further lifted to a three-child policy in 2021, in response to low birth rates and imbalanced sex ratios resulting from the almost 40-year one-child policy. Despite this, China's birthrate is at a historic low as fewer parents are having children. Now more than ever, inductive explorations are needed to understand what motivates Chinese parents to have first and second children in the post-one-child policy era, particularly explorations that situate individual decision-making within the larger social context. Individual and relational choices occur in larger sociopolitical contexts. Understanding these "personal" actions involves considering how micro and macro processes inform each other. In this study, we elicited qualitative responses from Chinese mothers (N = 117) with two children in early childhood (firstborn ≤8 years old) from Liao Ning province. Most mothers were well educated, employed, and married to children's fathers. Using inductive thematic analysis procedures, we coded qualitative responses about the factors that motivated mothers to have first and second children. Our data revealed that (a) mothers expressed different reasons for having firstborns compared to secondborns, and (b) decision-making occurred against a backdrop of interacting micro-level and macro-level influences (e.g., cultural norms, national policy changes). In particular, mothers described the decision to have secondborns as more deliberative than with firstborns, considering long-term benefits siblinghood and shared demands of elderly caregiving. If efforts to stimulate the national birthrate are likely to succeed, policymakers should consider micro-level as well as macro-level factors that shape mothers' childbearing decision-making.2016年, 中国颁布了二胎政策, 并在2021年进一步将二胎提升为三胎政策, 以应对近40年的一胎政策导致的低出生率和性别比例不平衡。尽管如此, 中国的出生率仍处于历史最低水平, 因为生孩子的父母越来越少。现在比以往任何时候都更需要归纳性的探索, 以了解在后独生子女政策时代, 中国父母生育第一和第二个孩子的动机, 特别是将个人决策置于更大的社会背景中的探索。个人和关系的选择发生在更大的社会政治背景下。理解这些 "个人"行动需要考虑微观和宏观过程如何相互影响。在这项研究中, 我们从辽宁省有两个孩子的中国母亲 (N = 117) 那里获得了定性的回答 (第一个孩子≤8岁) 。大多数母亲都受过良好的教育, 有工作, 并与孩子的父亲结婚。使用归纳式主题分析程序, 我们对促使母亲生育第一和第二个孩子的因素进行了质的解码。本研究数据显示: (A)母亲表达了生头胎和生二胎的不同原因; (B) 决策是在微观和宏观影响 (如文化规范、国家政策变化) 相互作用的背景下发生的。特别是, 母亲们表示考虑到兄弟姐妹的长期利益和共同照顾老人的需求, 生二胎的决定会比生长子更慎重。如果刺激全国出生率的努力有可能成功, 政策制定者应该考虑影响母亲生育决策的微观和宏观因素。.