The Impact of Women’s Opportunity Costs on Household Fertility Decisions: Evidence from China

As a core component of childbearing costs, women’s opportunity costs provide a crucial perspective for explaining the current decline in fertility rates. Recognizing the reciprocal causality between women’s opportunity costs and fertility decisions, this study examines their statistical correlation using micro-level data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Building on these empirical insights, we develop a household fertility decision-making model that incorporates women’s opportunity costs, calibrating the parameters through structural estimation to quantitatively explore its impact on fertility choices. The quantitative empirical findings reveal a significantly negative correlation between women’s opportunity costs and the actual number of children in a household. The theoretical analysis demonstrates that an intensifying motherhood penalty and prolonged career interruptions due to childbirth both lead to a reduction in the equilibrium number of children. Furthermore, higher educational attainment and increasing child-rearing costs exert a pronounced inhibitory effect on fertility intentions. Policy simulations further indicate that, compared to short-term or one-off incentives, continuous fertility subsidies and the implementation of free childcare policies are more effective in offsetting opportunity costs and boosting household fertility intentions.