Abstract:

In the new trend of childbirth in our country, studying the trends of fertility motivations of highly-educated women across different generations is of forward-looking significance for understanding the future societal trends in childbirth. Based on Miller et al.’s classification of fertility motivation and the theory of planned behavior, this paper constructs a child-specific fertility motivation measurement framework for highly-educated women of childbearing age, and investigates the generational differences in fertility motivations among 1,030 female doctoral degree holders and candidates in our country. The results show that: the fertility motivation for having one child among female doctorate holders and candidates is strongly individualistic, with value and emotional motivations having the most positive impact; time cost and career development opportunities are the primary negative motivations, with older generations being heavily constrained by health conditions and younger generations being significantly constrained by economic costs. The fertility motivation for having a second child places greater emphasis on family factors, with the motivation for child development being the most important, and the motivation for gender preference growing stronger among younger generations; the influence of family resource constraints on fertility intentions is more pronounced for second-child aspirations compared to first-child decisions. Samples with compromised health status demonstrate fertility motivations that are predominantly driven by familial and societal factors, while those who are either only-children or married exhibit familialism-oriented fertility motivations. In order to stimulate positive fertility motivations and mitigate the impact of negative fertility motivations among highly-educated women of childbearing age in China, it is recommended to explore flexible working arrangements and parental leave, reduce the time cost for women to care for their families; provide high-quality and inclusive childcare services to ensure the continuity of career development before and after childbirth; expand the coverage of maternity and medical insurance, and reduce the age and health condition restrictions on childbirth; comprehensively reduce the economic costs of raising multiple children, and relax the economic resource constraints on families of childbearing age.

Key words: highly-educated women, female doctorate holders and candidates, fertility motivation, cohort disparities