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THE RISK OF MOTHERS LOSING AN ONLY CHILD IN CHINA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2013

QUANBAO JIANG ,
YING LI  and
JESÚS J. SÁNCHEZ-BARRICARTE
QUANBAO JIANG
Affiliation:
Institute for Population and Development Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
YING LI
Affiliation:
Institute for Population and Development Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
JESÚS J. SÁNCHEZ-BARRICARTE*
Affiliation:
University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain
*
1Corresponding author. Email: jesusjavier.sanchez@uc3m.es
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Summary

China's one-child policy has been quite successful in bringing down the country's fertility level but has produced a large number of one-child families. The risk of one-child families losing their only child has not received enough attention. In this paper, using an extension of Goldman & Lord (1983)'s method to measure widowhood, period life-table data from China's 2000 population census are used to examine age-specific and cumulative probabilities of mothers losing their only child. It is found that a mother faces a 14.94% probability of losing a son, and 12.21% probability of losing a daughter. As the age of first-time mothers increases, the probability of losing a child declines. Urban and rural mothers have different indices regarding the loss of children. Based on these findings the prospects for China's one-child policy are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , July 2014 , pp. 531 - 545
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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