China One Child Policy
Essays

Economic reform has brought many changes to China's rural economy in the past two decades, as reflected in a combination of rapid economic growth, rural industrialization, structural change, and sharp reductions in fertility. This dissertation evaluates the possible consequences of these changes on women's labor force participation. The first essay explores the impact of China's "one-child policy" on female work patterns through its possible effects on fertility. Early studies that took fertility behavior to be exogenous to female labor supply tended to find that fertility has a negative impact on female labor supply.

In 1981 the Chinese government implemented the reproductive health program, also known as the one-child policy. This policy was intended to limit the number of births per family in order to stem a growing concern about over-population. This paper takes the position that while the population in China has stabilized, the overall effect of the policy has been detrimental to the nation in the long-run.