Abstract: China's urban fertility rate continues to decline. Reducing the costs associated with childbearing, childrearing, and educating children has become a core issue in population policy. The nine-year compulsory education stage, comprising primary and junior high school, constitutes a fundamental component of basic education. During this stage, families generally seek to ensure that their children can access relatively high-quality education to avoid falling behind at the starting point of schooling. However, the policy of “enrollment by school district and proximity-based admission” limits children's school options based on their residential location. Consequently, the spatial distribution of high-quality compulsory education schools within cities may directly influence households' education-related costs in areas such as housing, commuting, and extracurricular tutoring, thereby affecting fertility intentions. This study aims to empirically test these mechanisms and propose feasible approaches to enhance urban residents' fertility intentions.

Based on school rankings from multiple educational consulting platforms, this study constructs an index capturing the within-city spatial equity of high-quality compulsory education resources for a sample of 35 major Chinese cities. This index is subsequently merged with data from the 2017 China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) to empirically assess its impact on urban residents' fertility intentions. The results show that a one-standard-deviation increase in the spatial equity index is associated with an approximately 5.4% higher level of fertility intentions. This finding remains robust across multiple sensitivity checks, including replacing the measurements of key variables and conducting random sampling regressions. Further mechanism analysis indicates that, for households with children aged 4 to 15, a one-standard-deviation increase in the equity index is associated with a decrease of about 20.7% and 12.8% in the unit price and market value of their houses, respectively. Simultaneously, the probability of respondents facing a heavier commuting burden decreases by approximately 2.4%, and the proportion of those whose heavier commuting burden is attributable to their children's education drops by about 6.5%. In addition, for households with children aged 7 to 15, expenditures on extracurricular tutoring decrease by around 4.8%.

Previous studies examine the relationship between residents' fertility intentions and their children's education primarily from the perspective of education costs or parents' educational preferences. This study investigates this relationship from the supply side. By focusing on the influence of spatial distribution of high-quality compulsory education resources on fertility intentions, this study provides empirical evidence for understanding the underlying link between fertility-supportive policies and educational development strategies.

The findings have three key policy implications. First, the spatial equity of high-quality compulsory education resources within cities should be enhanced. Second, measures such as improving school district management systems, optimizing transportation infrastructure and school bus services around campuses, and expanding affordable after-school programs should be implemented to reduce the additional costs families bear in housing, commuting, and extracurricular tutoring in pursuit of high-quality education. Third, education resources planning and coordination mechanisms aligned with demographic changes should be established to stabilize families' expectations regarding access to quality education.

Keywords: High-Quality Compulsory Education Resources, Spatial Allocation, Fertility Intentions

摘要： 推进义务教育优质均衡发展，可有效降低家庭的子女教育成本，是完善生育支持政策、构建生育友好型社会的重要举措。本文基于多个教育咨询平台提供的城市内义务教育阶段学校排名信息，采用Gini系数法测度了中国35个大城市主城区的优质义务教育资源空间配置均衡性，并结合2017年中国家庭金融调查(CHFS)数据，实证检验了优质义务教育资源空间配置均衡性对城市居民生育意愿的影响。结果显示，优质义务教育资源空间配置均衡指数每提高1个标准差，城市居民生育意愿平均提高约5.4%；其作用机制体现为缓解家庭因竞争优质义务教育资源而产生的住房和通勤负担，以及减少子女义务教育阶段的课外培训支出。这些研究发现可为探索生育支持政策与教育发展战略的深度融合提供参考信息。

关键词: 优质义务教育资源, 空间配置, 生育意愿