Family planning plays a central role in contemporary population policies. However, little is known about its long-term consequences in old age because of the identification challenge. In this study, we examine how family planning affects the quality of life of the Chinese elderly. The direction...

Gong et al. (2021) made additional challenges to our original paper (Chen et al., 2020A) after we made a detailed reply in Chen et al. (2021) to Gong et al. (2020). In this further reply, we use data-based evidence to demonstrate how Gong et al. (2021) misread or/and misinterpreted our paper and...

On the eve of its economic reforms, China achieved a much higher level of secondary education than other countries with a similar per capita income at the time. This study investigates the pre-reform formation of China's human capital by examining a massive rural education expansion program...

China introduced its stringent family planning policies from the early 1970s, known as the “Later, Longer, Fewer" policies, and followed it with the One-Child Policy from 1979. The number of children born to Chinese parents significantly decreased from 5.7 in late 1960s to 2.5 in 1988. In Chen...

We study the consequences of later marriage on later-life outcomes. China's family planning policies in the early 1970s---before the One-Child Policy (OCP)---regulated not only childbirth but also marriage. The recommended minimum marriage age of 25 years for men and 23 years for women was...