How the Higher Education Impacts on the Fertility Intention of Individuals? A Quasi‐Experiment of China

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the impact of higher education on fertility intentions in China, leveraging data from the 2012, 2013, and 2015 China General Social Survey (CGSS). Employing Bartik instrumental variables to address endogeneity concerns, we find that individuals with higher education exhibit lower fertility intentions. We explore three explanatory channels: attitudes toward elder care, wage dynamics, and gender equity. Our study contributes to the literature by highlighting the role of shifting attitudes toward gender equity and elder care in explaining the negative association between higher education and fertility intentions, with wage dynamics potentially mitigating this effect.