Contraceptive Use under the "One-Child Policy": An Analysis of Institutional Effects

Lijuan Wu, University of Maryland
Joan R. Kahn, University of Maryland

This paper takes an institutional approach to study the impact of population policies on the contraceptive behavior of currently married women in China. The analysis is based on data from the 1991 and 1993 waves of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. We focus on three types of institutional factors: the strength of local population control policies; the strength of policy disincentives; and the tightening up of local population policies between 1991 and 1993. We expect that women in communities with strong population control regulations, strong disincentive measures, and a greater tightening of population control are more likely to use contraception, to choose more effective methods, and if they discontinue use during the period, to do so because of "method failures." Logistic and multinomial models are used to test these hypotheses.