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      Assessing the impact of the “one-child policy” in China: A synthetic control approach

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          Abstract

          There is great debate surrounding the demographic impact of China’s population control policies, especially the one-birth restrictions, which ended only recently. We apply an objective, data-driven method to construct the total fertility rates and population size of a ‘synthetic China’, which is assumed to be not subjected to the two major population control policies implemented in the 1970s. We find that while the earlier, less restrictive ‘later-longer-fewer’ policy introduced in 1973 played a critical role in driving down the fertility rate, the role of the ‘one-child policy’ introduced in 1979 and its descendants was much less significant. According to our model, had China continued with the less restrictive policies that were implemented in 1973 and followed a standard development trajectory, the path of fertility transition and total population growth would have been statistically very similar to the pattern observed over the past three decades.

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          A New Approach to the Economic Theory of Fertility Behavior

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            Assessing Economic Liberalization Episodes: A Synthetic Control Approach

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              Population dynamics and climate change: what are the links?

              Climate change has been described as the biggest global health threat of the 21(st) century. World population is projected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050, with most of this growth in developing countries. While the principal cause of climate change is high consumption in the developed countries, its impact will be greatest on people in the developing world. Climate change and population can be linked through adaptation (reducing vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change) and, more controversially, through mitigation (reducing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change). The contribution of low-income, high-fertility countries to global carbon emissions has been negligible to date, but is increasing with the economic development that they need to reduce poverty. Rapid population growth endangers human development, provision of basic services and poverty eradication and weakens the capacity of poor communities to adapt to climate change. Significant mass migration is likely to occur in response to climate change and should be regarded as a legitimate response to the effects of climate change. Linking population dynamics with climate change is a sensitive issue, but family planning programmes that respect and protect human rights can bring a remarkable range of benefits. Population dynamics have not been integrated systematically into climate change science. The contribution of population growth, migration, urbanization, ageing and household composition to mitigation and adaptation programmes needs urgent investigation.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: MethodologyRole: SoftwareRole: Writing – original draft
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Formal analysisRole: MethodologyRole: SoftwareRole: SupervisionRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                6 November 2019
                2019
                : 14
                : 11
                : e0220170
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Division of Social Sciences, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, PRC
                [2 ] Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Beijing, PRC
                [3 ] Population Research Institute, LSE-Fudan Research Centre for Global Public Policy, Fudan University, Shanghai, PRC
                University of Louvain, BELGIUM
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: SGB is paid employee of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, XH is paid employees of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, YC is paid employees of Fudan University. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products associated with this research to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1153-9699
                Article
                PONE-D-18-29960
                10.1371/journal.pone.0220170
                6834373
                31693666
                773fc0a8-25b4-4c97-861d-4030e6d58c27
                © 2019 Gietel-Basten et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 24 October 2018
                : 2 July 2019
                Page count
                Figures: 3, Tables: 2, Pages: 17
                Funding
                The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology provided support for this study in the form of salaries for SGB, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank provided support for this study in the form of salaries for XH, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Fudan University provided support for this study in the form of salaries for YC, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.
                Categories
                Research Article
                People and Places
                Geographical Locations
                Asia
                China
                Social Sciences
                Sociology
                Human Families
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Population Biology
                Population Metrics
                Fertility Rates
                People and Places
                Population Groupings
                Age Groups
                Children
                People and Places
                Population Groupings
                Families
                Children
                Earth Sciences
                Geography
                Geographic Areas
                Rural Areas
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Population Biology
                Population Metrics
                Sex Ratio
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Population Biology
                Population Metrics
                Life Expectancy
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Public and Occupational Health
                Life Expectancy
                Engineering and Technology
                Electronics
                Comparators
                Custom metadata
                All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

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                Uncategorized

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