Free Lunches and Fertility: Evidence from China’s Rural Nutrition Improvement Program

This study examines the impact of China’s Rural Nutrition Improvement Program (CRNIP), which provides free lunch meals to students during their compulsory education, on second-child fertility rates in China’s poorest counties. Using cohort Difference-in-Differences estimations with China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) survey data, the results show the program significantly reduces the likelihood of mothers having a second child by 9.24 percentage points. We explore two channels through which this impact operates. First, interpreting the CRNIP as a government investment in child ‘quality’, we provide evidence of a quantity-quality tradeoff: with participating households substituting towards quality. Second, we find evidence of a fertility-employment tradeoff, with the program increasing the labour force participation rates of (some) mothers. Heterogeneity analysis reveals the largest fertility reductions for mothers in the poorest households, followed by middle-income households, with no impact for the richest ones. The labor force participation channel only pertains to mothers in middle-income households. These findings highlight an important unintended consequence for Chinese policymakers given that the program reduces fertility rates while other policies are actively seeking to increase them.

Speaker biography:

Professor Jane Golley is Head of the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy. Jane’s research has covered a wide range of topics centred around the Chinese economy, often intersecting with other disciplines, including geography, demographic change, and political relations.  Jane teaches Master-level courses on the Chinese and Asian economies. She has served as the President of the Chinese Economic Society of Australia (2010-2012) and the Chinese Studies Association of Australia (2020-2021) and is an Executive Member of the Australia-China Business Council (ACT).