The Effect of Village-Level Birth Planning Policy Variation on Infant Mortality in China

William Lavely, University of Washington
William M. Mason, University of California at Los Angeles

China's birth planning policy is sometimes cited as a factor explaining discriminatory treatment of girls and elevated mortality of female infants, but there is little direct evidence. A better understanding of this connection would be useful in the re-design of policies in a manner conducive to female welfare. We utilize the one percent clustered sample of the 1990 census, which contains data on 354,697 children born in 8,518 administrative village-level units in the 18-month period prior to the 1990 census. Our analysis is multilevel, with infants, mothers (and families), and villages as observational units. We model infant mortality as a function of the index child's characteristics, maternal and household characteristics, and village level characteristics. We develop two measures of birth planning policy at the village level, based on the propensity to progress from first to higher parities.