Educational Assortative Mating and Fertility Intentions in China

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 educationfertility has a negative gradient.Furthermore, when husbands are highly educated, highly educated wives exhibit a relatively higher willingness to have two-child than mediumeducated 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.