Fertility cultures and childbearing desire after the Two-Child Policy: evidence from southwest China

Early work on China's Two-Child Policy identified cost as a major disincentive to having a second child, but financial constraints may work in tandem with cultural factors to shape childbearing desire. In addition, most research has excluded men from the sample. This paper develops Yan's (2003 Yan, Y. (2003). Private life under socialism: Love, intimacy, and family change in a Chinese village 1949-1999. Stanford University.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) concepts of 'new' and 'traditional' fertility cultures to childbearing desire, a key component of fertility decision-making that is poorly understood (Hayford & Agadjanian, 2017 Hayford, S. R., & Agadjanian, V. (2017). Determined to stop? Longitudinal analysis of the desire to have no more children in rural Mozambique. Population Studies, 71(3), 329–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2017.1334957[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In particular, we focus on how differing conceptions of children's needs relate to perceptions of cost. This paper reports on semi-structured interviews with 29 men and women in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. We found that interviewees who espoused views consistent with a traditional fertility framework were more interested in having a second child, and were less concerned about cost. In addition, men were more likely to espouse views consistent with a traditional fertility cultural framework.