arbiter
JournalsPricingAccount

Inequality of opportunity and fertility intentions

Bianjing Ma et al.

China Economic Quarterly International2025https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.05.003article
ABDC C
Weight
0.37

What the paper says

Today's parents prioritize their children's future opportunities and well-being over the costs and benefits of child-rearing. Inequality of opportunity (IO) worsens children's developmental prospects and reduces fertility intentions. Using nationally representative data from China, we show that IO profoundly undermines parents' motivation to have children across social groups. Mechanism analyses show that residents of areas with high IO have less confidence in the future and postpone their first marriages and first children. Moreover, facing IO-induced depreciation of educational attainment, to avoid a decline in educational attainment or status, parents instead increase investment in children's education to improve their skills and quality, thereby suppressing fertility intentions. This study underscores that addressing IO is not merely a matter of equity but a demographic necessity. D63 J13 D31. • Our study is among the first to examine the effects of IO on fertility intentions. • We advance IO research by exploring its socioeconomic consequences. • Rising IO boosts educational investments, which represses fertility intentions.

1 citation

Open paper page →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.05.003

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{bianjing2025,
  title        = {{Inequality of opportunity and fertility intentions}},
  author       = {Bianjing Ma et al.},
  journal      = {China Economic Quarterly International},
  year         = {2025},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ceqi.2025.05.003},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

Inequality of opportunity and fertility intentions

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.37

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.16 × 0.4 = 0.06
M · momentum0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.