Women's status and fertility transition in China in the 1980's: integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to digital@library.tamu.edu, referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references.Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics.This thesis analyzes how women's status, and change in status, affect fertility in the 1980s across the provinces of China. Women's status in this study refers to female autonomy. The four aspects of female autonomy are examined by measuring women's economic independence from men, women's accessibility to modem knowledge, the prevalence of the patriarchal family structure in the society, and female's autonomy on age of marriage. Total fertility rate (TFR) in 1989 and the change of TFR from 1981 to 1989 are used to represent the fertility level in the 1980s. The theoretical approach of this thesis will outline why and how women's status affects fertility and will give special attention to the situations and the change in the social institutions which related to women's status that lead to fertility change. Some of the cultural effects, like the value of children as security assets in the society, and women's roles in the process of changing the patriarchal family structure in China, are discussed. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches are used in this thesis to investigate the impacts of women's status on fertility behavior. The statistical and cultural evidence in this thesis support my hypotheses and show that women's autonomy in economy, education, and marriage have negative relationships with fertility respectively. The unpopularity of the patriarchal family structure in the society helps to emancipate women from traditional values of kinship power and son preference which promotes, "more children more happiness". This study also shows that improving women's status not only means an increase in women's economic and educational levels, but, more importantly, it also means that changes in the social institution of gender and in social norms, both of which have hindered the improvement of women's status, are also necessary