China’s Family Planning Policy and Contraceptive Using

Abstract: Under the Family Planning Policy, the contraceptive use in China is not only the outcome of personal choice but highly influenced by the policy regulations. Using provincial level data, this study aims in finding to what extend does Family Planning Policy have its impact on the contraceptive use of married Chinese women aged 15-49 years from year 1992 to 2017. Controls for social economic status (SES) as educational level, consumption along with urbanization rate, OLS Model and Fixed Effects Model are used to find out the association between policy strength and contraceptive use both across and within province. Results show that across provinces over time, the general trend in using contraceptive is the decrease of sterilization and the increase of using reversible and short-term contraceptives. As policy goes tighter, the rate of accept sterilization is going to increase significantly while the rate change of using IUD remains gentle. Condom using is highly associated with both policy and social economic status. Also, the practicing of oral contraception and injections is also highly influenced by policy and SES. Meanwhile, the Fixed Effects Model shows that within provinces, the policy strength remains a highly significant factor behind contraceptive use, but the SES factors are not as significant as across provinces. Also, because the omittance of domestic migration which is a time-varying factor, the result of Fixed Effects Model could be biased.