Abstract
Taking data from the China Fertility Survey 2017 for nine provinces in southwestern and south-central China, we calculated differences in C-section rates among women of different ages, and with different types of hukou and different levels of education. We used the Cox proportional hazards model and a binary logistic regression method to examine the impact of C-section at the first birth on the intention of having a second child and actually giving birth to a second child under the Universal Two-child Policy. This study comes to the following conclusions: (1) the C-section rate is generally high among women, especially among those who are older, have non-agricultural hukou, or have a junior college or above education level; (2) similar to the research findings of scholars in other countries, women having C-section at first birth are 16–20% less likely to have a second child than women having no C-section at first birth; and (3) women having C-section at first birth are less inclined to have a second child.
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Notes
The full database has yet to be released; the authors only have the sub-data in hand. It is necessary to point out most of these nine provinces are developing provinces that may not be representative of the country as a whole.
The C-section rate among women holding a junior college or above diploma was abnormally low in 2005 and abnormally high in 2006. This might have to do with sample sizes in the 2 years.
Selective Two-child Policy implemented during 2014 and 2015, which enable couples have the second child if at least one of them is the only child.
According to the data, the C-section rate at first birth for Han nationality Chinese was 14.14% overall and 37.84% after 2005, and was 8.37% for the ethnic minority Chinese overall and 23.96% after 2005, which indicates that the difference between these two groups was significant.
Age is essentially a time-varying covariate, but is treated as a non-time-varying covariate.
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Shi, R., Hu, B. & Ning, W. Assessing the impact of C-section at first birth on the second birth. China popul. dev. stud. 3, 252–268 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42379-020-00043-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42379-020-00043-9