China’s low fertility rates are a major concern across all sectors of society. Fertility is a major issue related to economy, society and family development. Based on social norms theory, this paper explores the influence of social norms on individuals’ fertility intentions from two perspectives: spatial proximity and social proximity. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, we found that individual’s fertility intentions were influenced by social norms; both neighborhood social norms and group social norms had significant effects. The role of social norms in shaping individual fertility intentions varied by gender, hukou, and life course; specifically, men, rural residents, and married individuals were more significantly influenced by social norms. This study improves the theoretical framework of fertility decision making by arguing that in addition to macro and individual factors, social norms have a very important influence on fertility intentions. Our findings suggest that reshaping social norms regarding fertility is essential to enhance fertility rates in China.

Aim: This study analyzes the effects of retrospective stressful life events on current depression among Chinese older people and how these effects are moderated by social support. Stressful life events comprise bereavement, divorce, health adversities, accidents, and financial losses due to fraud.Data and Method: Data were drawn from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) of the 2015 panel, and responses from 9,619 older people aged over 60 years were used. The least-squares regression method was applied to measure the linear effects. Propensity score matching minimized selection bias and enabled the measurement of the net effects of stressful life events. The bias-corrected matching estimator was also used to correct the inexact matching bias from propensity score matching.Result: Experienced stressful life events and exposure to cumulative stressful life events were found to lead to depression in older people. When older people experienced stressful life events but with more social activities, and higher satisfaction and frequent contact with children, their depressive levels were lower. The results of the propensity score matching showed that stressful life events resulted in depression in older people. Furthermore, individuals with family support were able to moderate stressful life events effects; however, the moderating effects of social activity separately were negligible. In sum, with the moderating role of family support and social activity, the average differences in older people depression caused by stressful life events decreased.Conclusion: Experiencing stressful life events is detrimental to the psychological health of the older people. Social support, including family support and social activity, has buffered detrimental effects on depression caused by stressful life events.Interpretations: The study underscores the need to supply effective interventions for the older people who experienced stressful life events. First, society should improve the capability of community care centers to supply mental health services. Second, family members should pay attention to mental condition of older people, and specific support should concord with the needs of Chinese older people. In addition, support suppliers can move from being confined to kinship relationships to close relationships, such as the community partners and neighbors.

Since 2016, 15 pilot cities in China have implemented a long-term care insurance (LTCI) policy. The aim of this research was to explore the outcomes and evaluate the performance of the LTCI policy in the Chinese pilot cities and estimate the willingness of Chinese citizens to expand the formal implementation of LTCI policy in China. We gathered data from 1500 elderly people aged over 60 years in 15 pilot cities (100 surveys for each city) and the effective response rate was 77.8% (1167/1500). We relied on statistical analysis to elicit the outcomes and performance of LTCI implementation and an ordinal logit regression to analyze the factors associated with the extension of the LTCI policy. We examined factors associated with the perception according to sex, age, degree of disability, choices of care, living location, number of children, and monthly income. Among these factors, the relationship between living location and number of children of the family and the outcomes and performance of the LTCI policy in the pilot cities was significant. The rest of the factors showed no significance with the implementation of the LTCI in Chinese pilot cities. This study is among the first to explore the attitudes of Chinese citizens among those who have benefited from the LTCI policy in the pilot cities and contributes to identifying the outcomes of the LTCI in pilot cities to assist policymakers in their further implementation in China.

While China has decreasing female labor participation and increasing marital instability, compared to the rest of the world, its female labor participation rate is higher on average. The effect of female labor force status on couples' marital satisfaction, as one of the main factors for evaluating marital quality, has been separately discussed, including extensive margins considering whether women are in the labor market and intensive margins on women working hours per week. This study analyzed data from the 2014 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) using a binary logit model and a stability test. Results showed that the work hours, rather than the occupational status, of women affect marital satisfaction. In addition, regardless of the gender role attitudes held by the couple, marital satisfaction increases when women are in the labor market. This study has retroactively reviewed the effects of women working outside the home on marital quality. The dual roles of Chinese women, as both employee and homemaker, have been socially accepted. However, the requirements of maintaining multiple roles often contradict and present conflicts among the roles, time, and pressure, in the long run, giving rise to marital dissatisfaction.

This study analyses the effect of air pollution on the settlement intention of migrants in China. In recent years, the willingness of residents to migrate induced by air pollution has received a lot of attention from academics. By matching information from the China Migrants Dynamic Survey from 2015 to 2017 with the air quality index (AQI), we used the Probit model to assess the impact of air pollution on the settlement intentions of migrants with different socioeconomic statuses. First, we demonstrated that air pollution has a significant negative effect on migrants’ settlement intention. Second, we found that the effect of air pollution on settlement intention is influenced by individual socioeconomic status; that education level, as an indicator of cognitive ability, affects migrants’ motivation to migrate; and that personal income, as an indicator of economic ability, affects the feasibility of their migration. Motivation to migrate and the feasibility of moving determine together the divergence in settlement intention, and those with higher incomes and higher education levels are more likely to leave cities with serious air pollution. Third, the heterogeneous effects suggested that the negative effect of air pollution was greater for older, male, and married migrants. Our findings suggested that air pollution has a variety of effects on the heterogeneous migrants, resulting in changes in the demographic structure of cities.