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Published VersionCC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
The moderating role of happiness in the relationship between fertility desire and behavior in China
Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, Vol.12(1), pp.1-13
2025
Abstract
This paper examines how happiness moderates the relationship between fertility desire and actual fertility behavior in contemporary China. Drawing on data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) for the years 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2021, we employ Poisson and logistic regression models to analyze this dynamic. The results indicate that while fertility desire significantly predicts the number of children, happiness exerts a positive moderating effect: individuals who report higher levels of happiness are more likely to act on their fertility desires. To mitigate concerns of endogeneity, we use instrumental variables related to clan culture. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this moderating effect of happiness is stronger among older birth cohorts. Additionally, our findings suggest that rising parenting costs—particularly education expenses—dampen the positive effect of happiness, while the expansion of social security reduces the reliance on children for old-age support, thereby weakening the happiness-fertility linkage. These results highlight the need for fertility policies that go beyond economic incentives and aim to foster a broader sense of well-being to create a supportive environment for childbearing.
Details
- Title
- The moderating role of happiness in the relationship between fertility desire and behavior in China
- Authors
- Na Tan - Shanghai Lixin University of Accounting and FinanceSajid Anwar (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Business and Creative Industries
- Publication details
- Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, Vol.12(1), pp.1-13
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1057/s41599-025-05871-z
- ISSN
- 2662-9992
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
- Grant note
- Funding was provided by National Social Science Fund of China (Project No. 24BJY116).
- Organisation Unit
- School of Business and Creative Industries; Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991168130502621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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