The Fertility Impact of Temporary Migration in China: A Detachment Hypothesis

Author: Yang X.

Source: European Journal of Population/ Revue europenne de Dmographie, Volume 16, Number 2, June 2000 , pp. 163-183(21)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

This paper expands the migration-fertility linkage literature by examining the fertility impact of temporary migration in Hubei, China. The central hypothesis is that temporary migration affects migrants' fertility through a detachment process: The separation of temporary migrants' actual residence from their de jure residence creates a loophole in family planning administration, weakening the social control over their fertility. The analysis of annual order-specific births since 1979 suggests that temporary migrants exhibit significantly higher probabilities of having a second birth than permanent migrants and non-migrants once type of residence is controlled for; rural-rural temporary migrants have the highest fertility among all groups examined. The results lend support to the detachment hypothesis while indicating a strong anti-natal impact of urban residence. Rural-urban temporary migrants are not the ones to blame for increases in out-planning births in contemporary China, but their fertility would have been lower if there had been no detachment. Rural-rural temporary migrants are actually the escapees of the one-child-per-family policy.

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, USA (E-mail: xyang@odu.edu)

Publication date: 2000-06-01