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.
Using five waves of unbalanced panel data from the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS) spanning 2014 to 2023, this study focuses on individuals aged 60 and above and employs a staggered difference-in-differences approach. It investigates the baseline impact of the HCECS pilot on older adults' perceptions of government responsibility for elderly care, explores underlying mechanisms, and examines heterogeneous effects. The research not only helps reveal how changes in the elderly care service delivery model reshape individual perceptions of responsibility attribution and the boundaries of public welfare provision, thereby deepening our understanding of how perceptions of government responsibility are formed, but also directly relates to whether policies can effectively shape social expectations, clarify government functions, and enhance the overall effectiveness of the elderly care service system. Thus, it holds significant theoretical and practical implications.
The findings indicate that the HCECS pilot significantly strengthens older adults' perceptions of government responsibility for elderly care, and the results remain robust after a series of sensitivity tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that the HCECS pilot reinforces the tendency to attribute responsibility to the government by reducing financial support from adult children, while simultaneously generating a masking effect through increased instrumental and emotional support from children. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy impact is particularly pronounced among older adults with lower education levels, poorer family economic status, and better health conditions. Based on these findings, the study proposes recommendations in three areas： first, optimizing institutional design to guide older adults toward rational expectations of shared responsibility for elderly care; second, improving family-community collaboration mechanisms to achieve complementary integration between formal and informal support; and third, identifying policy-sensitive groups to implement targeted service delivery and perception guidance strategies.
This study extends beyond prior policy evaluations that often focus on objective outcomes such as health and economic status. By adopting a cultural perspective, it explores how the HCECS pilot reshapes older adults' perceptions of government responsibility, thereby broadening the scope of policy assessment research. Additionally, the quasi-experimental design helps identify causal policy effects, addressing previous limitations in establishing robust causal inference regarding the relationship between elderly care security policies and individual perceptions of government responsibility. Furthermore, this study thoroughly analyzes and verifies the mechanisms and heterogeneity of the policy effects, providing new empirical evidence for understanding how policies reshape older adults' perceptions of government responsibility for elderly care.
Drawing on data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) spanning 2010 to 2022, we link children's childcare experiences before age 3 to developmental outcomes in physical and health, cognitive-academic, and social-emotional domains observed between ages 3 and 15. Depending on the type of outcome measures, we use ordinary least square model, linear mixed effect model, and logistic random effects model for empirical analyses. To address non-random selection into childcare, we control for individual and family background characteristics, and further implement an advanced sensitivity analysis to confirm that our major findings are robust to unmeasured confounders that are up to three times as strong as those already adjusted for.
The findings indicate substantial selection into childcare service use: children born to better-educated parents, with non-agricultural Hukou, whose mothers had their first birth at an older age, and of lower birth order are more likely to receive early childcare services. Conditional on these factors, in the physical and health dimension, early childcare experience is significantly and negatively associated with stunting and illness frequency, and these effects are relatively stable over time. Meanwhile, early childcare has no significant relationship with overweight or obesity. In the cognitive-academic dimension, early childcare is not significantly related to verbal and numerical cognitive skills after 10, but it is associated with parents' positive and lasting ratings of academic performance in Chinese and mathematics, suggesting a modest yet sustained advantage in school achievement. In the social-emotional dimension, early childcare is not significantly associated with peer relationships, self-esteem or locus of control, but it shows a negative link with the sense of responsibility. This pattern is consistent with concerns that early and prolonged separation from parents is related to weakened parent-child attachments and limited social-emotional development. International evidence suggests, however, that high-quality childcare service and parenting interaction can mitigate or avoid potential social-emotional risks associated with early childcare experience.
This study provides new population-based evidence from China regarding the potential benefits and trade-offs of early childcare services on children's development. The results indicate that early childcare experience can support children's physical and health development and academic performance, while raising cautions about possible adverse effects on specific aspects of social-emotional development. These findings underscore the need to accelerate the development of an inclusive childcare service system in China. In doing so, it is essential to increase investment in high-quality childcare provision and strengthen coordination between childcare providers and families.
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