The impact of birth control policy on offspring's education level: microeconomic evidence from China

The effect of the recent "two-child policy" has attracted a new wave of attention. Using the 2005 China's inter-census 1% population survey data and multiple econometric methods, we identify the causal relationship between quality and quantity of population in China. The results suggest that being a single child increased his/her educational attainment, but this effect was only evident in regions with lower income and less developed credit markets. With China's economic development, relaxing households' constraints on investment in offspring's human capital may ease the negative impacts of a country-wide relaxation of birth control and thus may promote sustainable economic development.