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© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

On 31 May 2021, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed the policy that a couple can have three children, and rolled out more supportive measures to further optimize the fertility policies. However, while the Chinese government is further optimizing its fertility policy, the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 is raging around the world, which threatens the implementation of China’s fertility optimization policy. Based on this, this paper firstly explores the impact of COVID-19 on women’s fertility intentions. Secondly, based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, this paper constructs a structural equation model to quantitatively reveal the specific factors that affect women’s fertility intentions under the epidemic, as well as their impact paths, and then puts forward corresponding suggestions for the government to solve the problem of fertility, aiming at delaying population aging and optimizing population structure. The research results show that: (1) COVID-19 lowers the fertility intentions of women of childbearing age. (2) During the pandemic, economic pressure emerged as the biggest factor affecting women’s fertility intentions. The decline in income caused by the pandemic has become an important factor in preventing women from having children. (3) The conflict between work and childbearing is still an important factor affecting the fertility intentions of women of childbearing age. The government’s provision of perfect childcare services and their strengthening of the protection of women’s employment rights and interests will greatly reduce women’s anxiety about childbearing.

Details

Title
The Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Fertility Intentions of Women with Childbearing Age in China
Author
Chen, Tinggui 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Hou, Peixin 2 ; Wu, Tiantian 2 ; Yang, Jianjun 3 

 School of Statistics and Mathematics, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Statistical Data Engineering Technology & Application, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China 
 School of Statistics and Mathematics, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China 
 Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of North Georgia, Oakwood, GA 30566, USA 
First page
335
Publication year
2022
Publication date
2022
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
2076328X
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2716486815
Copyright
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.