Enforcing Government Policy: Privatization and the Weakening Effects of China's One Child Policy
I evaluate the role of China's privatization of the economy in affecting individuals' fertility choices. State owned enterprises or other state owned organizations (SOEs) impose more control over individual choices than non SOEs, and hence can perform a role in enforcing the one child policy (OCP) Linear regressions, 2SLS using the father's SOE status as an instrumental variable, difference in differences analysis using the introduction of the OCP as an exogenous shock all find a significantly and economically large negative impact of SOE status on fertility. Thus the OCP might already lead to a lower fertility without privatization, and more intensive control in SOEs rather than more intensive propaganda explains this.