Research chronicle

Against the backdrop of a sustained decline in marriage and birth rates in China and intensifying gender tensions, traditional explanations centered on individual preferences or gender norms are insufficient to account for the structural mechanisms involved. Drawing on the economics of marriage and the family, this paper examines how rising costs of housing, weddings, bride price, childbearing, and education affect men's decisions to enter marriage, as well as how the expansion of higher education, the shortage of standardized professional employment, and the motherhood penalty shape women's opportunity costs associated with marriage. Building on these factors, together with declining expectations of economic growth, changing lifestyle expectations, and the rising utility of singlehood as an alternative, the paper proposes the “Dual Marriage Costs–Expectation Mismatch Integrated Model” (the Di Formula) and uses “marital surplus” to characterize the comprehensive net benefits of marriage relative to singlehood. The paper argues that contemporary gender relations in China involve more than a conflict of values, but separately rising direct marriage costs for men and opportunity costs for women, together with a widening structural mismatch between modernity-based expectations and real resource constraints. When marital surplus declines and eventually becomes negative, individually rational decisions to postpone or forgo marriage may, in aggregate, contribute to declining marriage and birth rates and intensified gender tensions. Marriage is therefore increasingly shifting from a traditional mechanism of family cooperation toward a high-cost, high-risk, long-term economic decision.

Against the backdrop of a sustained decline in marriage and birth rates in China and intensifying gender tensions, traditional explanations centered on individual preferences or gender norms are insufficient to account for the structural mechanisms involved. Drawing on the economics of marriage and the family, this paper examines how rising costs of housing, weddings, bride price, childbearing, and education affect men's decisions to enter marriage, as well as how the expansion of higher education, the shortage of standardized professional employment, and the motherhood penalty shape women's opportunity costs associated with marriage. Building on these factors, together with declining expectations of economic growth, changing lifestyle expectations, and the rising utility of singlehood as an alternative, the paper proposes the “Dual Marriage Costs–Expectation Mismatch Integrated Model” (the Di Formula) and uses “marital surplus” to characterize the comprehensive net benefits of marriage relative to singlehood. The paper argues that contemporary gender relations in China involve more than a conflict of values, but separately rising direct marriage costs for men and opportunity costs for women, together with a widening structural mismatch between modernity-based expectations and real resource constraints. When marital surplus declines and eventually becomes negative, individually rational decisions to postpone or forgo marriage may, in aggregate, contribute to declining marriage and birth rates and intensified gender tensions. Marriage is therefore increasingly shifting from a traditional mechanism of family cooperation toward a high-cost, high-risk, long-term economic decision.

Monday, 26 October 2026 - 9:00am Overview The meeting on Measuring the Generational Economy: National Inclusion Accounts for Inclusive Policymaking is co-organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. It builds on a Development Account project supporting the implementation of National Inclusion Accounts in eight pilot countries across two regions: Colombia, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Uruguay in Latin America and the Caribbean; and Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives and Viet Nam in Asia and the Pacific. These countries represent diverse stages of the demographic transition and varying levels of economic development, offering a rich basis for comparative learning and policy dialogue. Through their work, the pilot countries demonstrate the potential of National Inclusion Accounts to generate policy-relevant evidence on inequality, intergenerational support and the distribution of resources across population groups. The meeting will provide a platform to present country results, exchange experiences, and discuss how National Transfer Accounts and its extensions can be used to support fiscal planning, social protection, inclusive growth and long-term policymaking. The objective of the meeting is to introduce National Inclusion Accounts as a new extension of the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) framework and to showcase results from eight pilot countries supported under the Development Account project, a collaboration of DESA, ECLAC and ESCAP. The meeting will provide a strategic overview of NTA and its related extensions — National Time Transfer Accounts and National Inclusion Accounts — as decision-support tools for fiscal planning, social protection, inclusive growth and long-term policymaking. It will highlight how these frameworks generate evidence on the respective roles of governments, families and markets in supporting individuals across the life course. The meeting will also provide an opportunity for policymakers and partners to share policy applications of National Transfer Accounts and its extensions, including how these tools can inform responses to population ageing, inequality, unpaid care work, intergenerational support, and the design of more inclusive and sustainable policies.   Document Concept note   Organization of work Monday, 26 October 2026     Morning session — Chair: DESA (Cheryl Sawyer, Chief, Population Trends And Analysis Branch, UNDESA Population Division)   9.00 – 9.20 a.m. Welcome Remarks United Nations: Lin Yang, Deputy Executive Secretary, ESCAP    China National Committee on Ageing: Madam Lv Xiaoli, Vice Commissioner, CNCA  HelpAge International: Eduardo Klein, Regional Director, HelpAge    9.20 – 10.15 a.m. Population Ageing: Global, Regional and Country Responses Nicole Mun Sim Lai, Population Affairs Officer, UNDESA Population Division.  Global population ageing: the role of DESA      Sabine Henning, Chief, Sustainable Demographic Transition Section, ESCAP.  Population ageing in Asia and the Pacific: the role of ESCAP ECLAC.  Population ageing in Latin America and the Caribbean: the role of ECLAC China National Committee on Ageing.  Responding to population ageing in China: policies, progress and future outlook Q & A   10:15 – 10:25 a.m. Group Photo   10:25 – 10:45 a.m Coffee Break   10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. National Inclusion Accounts in Latin America and the Caribbean Moderator: Raul Holz, Senior Researcher, ECLAC Colombia        Costa Rica      Jamaica         Uruguay         Q & A           12:00 – 13:30 p.m.      Lunch Break     Afternoon session: Chair: ESCAP   13:30 – 15:15 p.m. Policy Panel Discussion: Population Ageing — NTA, NTTA and NTA-I Moderator: Nicole Mun Sim Lai, Population Affairs Officer, UNDESA Africa perspective: Senior country representatives from Africa     Asia perspective: Eduardo Klein, Regional Director, HelpAge; Professor Sang-Hyop Lee, University of Hawaii at Manoa Europe perspective: Agnieszka Chłoń-Domińczak, President, Government Population Council (GPC), Poland     Latin America and the Caribbean perspective: Two senior representatives from Latin America and the Caribbean     Q & A (Discussant: Professor Long, Viet Nam)    15:15 – 15:35  p.m. Coffee Break   15:35 – 16:50 p.m. National Inclusion Accounts in Asia and the Pacific Moderators: Marco Roncarati, Social Affairs Officer, ESCAP; Napaphat Satchanawakul, Social Affairs Officer, ESCAP China: Professor Shen Ke, Fudan University Lao PDR Maldives Viet Nam Q & A    16:50 – 17:00 p.m.   Closing Remarks & Next Steps Cheryl Sawyer, UNDESA    

China’s 2025 reform raises some of the world’s lowest retirement ages. A birth-cohort simulation estimates that the reform holds the statutory working-age population roughly flat through the mid-2030s, keeping 48 million more people below retirement thresholds in 2035 and peaking near 67 million in 2043. Stability ends after the mid-2030s, but the effect remains large in the 2040s. The reform’s ultimate value depends on participation, demand, and artificial intelligence.

This study examines the influence of income inequality on the declining fertility rate in China from the perspective of educational expenditure. We employ provincial panel data from the China Statistical Yearbook spanning 2011 to 2020 for empirical analysis. The findings indicate: (1) Income inequality exerts a significant negative effect on the fertility rate. (2) The income distribu- tion gap significantly diminishes education expenditures; however, after introducing the interaction term, the impact on the fertility rate becomes significantly positive, suggesting that increased in- come inequality enhances the positive influence of education expenditure on the fertility rate. (3) Considering the threshold effect of income disparity, when the income gap is relatively small, it positively influences the fertility rate, as evidenced by the positive interaction term. (4) This study selects after-school tutoring expenditure as an instrumental variable because it is correlated with income and its educational resources are exogenous, satisfying the conditions for two-stage least squares regression. Tutoring affects the income gap but does not directly influence the fertility rate, ensuring the validity of our results. Finally, we evaluate the effectiveness of the two-child policy implemented in 2016 and conclude that its impact has been limited. Therefore, we recommend that the Chinese government focus on reducing the financial burden of education on families to poten- tially improve the fertility rate.

Fertility rates are declining worldwide, producing a growing share of only children. Exploiting China's One-Child Policy in a regression discontinuity design, we show that only children are significantly more risk-averse, less trusting, and less socially engaged than individuals with siblings. These trait differences reduce participation in FinTech (online lending, digital wealth management, and mobile payments) but not traditional finance. The effects are economically large, persist after accounting for differences in economic resources and digital access, and concentrate among less educated individuals and in regions with weaker investor protection. Only children also retreat more sharply from digital platforms following scandals, confirming trust as an operative mechanism. As the financial system becomes increasingly digital, demographic decline may impose a psychological constraint on financial modernization.

BACKGROUNDThe economic burden of educational competition is widely recognized.However, its potential correlation with family size remains largely unexplored, particularly how this correlation varies across birth parities and is associated with declining fertility rates. OBJECTIVEWe investigate how the intensity of educational competition is associated with fertility outcomes at the household level, using China as a case study.Particular attention is paid to the heterogeneous correlations across different socioeconomic groups and the broader implications for fertility trends and inequality in low-fertility settings. METHODSWe measure the number of private tutoring centers near schools as a proxy for educational competition intensity.We examine the relationship between local educational competition and the number of younger siblings among surveyed students. RESULTSResults indicate that having one or more tutoring centers within 800 meters of a school is associated with a 0.04-child reduction in the number of younger siblings, with this correlation being most prominent among low-and middle-income families. CONCLUSIONSExcessive educational competition may ultimately undermine population reproduction on a societal scale.East Asian societies such as China provide empirical evidence for this phenomenon.

BACKGROUNDLife expectancy in China has been increasing in recent decades, but regional inequalities persist.Unbalanced regional development has resulted in large-scale population movement.Over time, the changing regional distribution of the population changes the proportion of the population exposed to different regional mortality levels. OBJECTIVEThe increase in national life expectancy can be attributed to changes in both regional mortality and the regional composition of the population.We aim to quantify the respective contributions of changes in mortality and in the composition of the population. METHODSWe apply a decomposition method to data from the Chinese Disease Surveillance Points system from 2010 to 2020 and disaggregate the improvement in Chinese life expectancy into mortality and composition components. RESULTSImprovements in mortality were observed across all regions, positively contributing to the increase in national life expectancy.However, only the most and least economically developed regions -urban-east, urban-central, and rural-west -made positive contributions through the compositional component.All other regions contributed negatively, partially offsetting the progress made by the improvement in regional mortality.

The intergenerational transmission of age at first birth is important for demographic dynamics and the reproduction of social inequality, yet it remains underexplored in China's rapidly transitioning society. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, I examine cohort trends in intergenerational transmission of age at first birth for women born between 1941 and 1990. Results indicate that the intergenerational association has strengthened substantially over time, suggesting that family background is playing an increasingly important role in determining women's first-birth timing in the Post-Reform Era. Additionally, there is a non-linear, inverted-U-shaped pattern in the most recent cohorts (born during the 1970s and 1980s). Delays in first birth have been greatest for women whose parents had their first child at age 25-29, whereas those whose parents first gave birth after age 30 or before age 20 tend to enter parenthood earlier than this middle group.

Document Symbol/Reference:  ST/SOA/Ser.A/30 Document Type:  Drupal File Upload Author:  United Nations Tags:  Population Trends Location of Publication:  New York Publication Date:  Tuesday, 15 April 1958 Copyright:  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ Document Topic/Theme:  Report Document Image:  Document Type:  file Archived:  No Symbol Number:  30

This study examines the impact of China's regional pilot programmes, which aimed to reduce the sex ratio at birth (SRB) by prohibiting prenatal sex selection. These programmes, implemented in six provinces between 1996 and 2001, served as a precursor to the nationwide policy introduced in 2003. Using a staggered difference-in-differences approach and microdata from the 2010 Population Census, we estimate the causal effects of these pilot programmes on the SRB. The results indicate a significant decline in SRB for second and higher-order births but no meaningful change for first births, suggesting a relatively modest overall impact. The policy was more effective among populations with better economic conditions and higher maternal education and among non-agricultural hukou holders and migrants. This heterogeneity underscores the importance of socio-economic factors, gender-egalitarian attitudes, and strength of policy enforcement in determining the policy's success. These findings provide valuable insights into the potential effects of the 2003 nationwide policy.