ISSN: 2222-6990
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Against the backdrop of China’s persistently low fertility rates despite progressive policy changes, understanding the determinants of fertility intentions at the micro-level has become a issue of paramount importance. Education is a key factor, yet prior research often overlooks the interactive nature of couples' decision-making. We provide a new perspective on the education-fertility relationship by using the 2021 Chinese Social Survey (CSS) data to investigate how educational assortative mating (EAM) can predict their fertility intentions. We focus on differences in two-child fertility intentions among couples with varying combinations of couples’ education. The overall findings from China reveal that education–fertility has a negative gradient. Furthermore, when husbands are highly educated, highly educated wives exhibit a relatively higher willingness to have two-child than medium-educated wives, but lowly educated wives do not indicate intentions to have two-child. Our results highlight the need to consider the educational backgrounds of both partners to draw conclusions regarding the education-fertility association.
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