Wealth Redistribution and Population Growth in China
by Bin Xie
Abstract: China's land reform, initiated in the late 1940s, aimed to equitably redistribute land to peasants. Exploiting the variation in the timing and intensity of the reform, we empirically examine the impact of wealth redistribution on fertility in rural China. The county-level analysis shows that the reform led to a significant increase in annual births, with a stronger impact in counties where the reform was more intense. We further conduct the household-level analysis to explore the mechanisms behind this fertility increase. The results show that not only did poor peasant households experience higher fertility post-reform, but middle peasants, whose wealth remained relatively unchanged, also exhibited increased fertility. This suggests that the fertility effect of land reform is driven not solely by changes in individual wealth but also by perceptions of inequality within the community.