1. Lecture Topic:

Sex Selection and Population Growth: A Quantitative Analysis of China

2. Speaker: Yin Yongkun

Yin Yongkun, Assistant Research Fellow at Shandong University, Ph.D. in Economics from the Centre for Monetary and Financial Studies (CEMFI), Spain. His research fields are macroeconomics and family economics. His papers have been published in the Journal of International Economics, European Economic Review and Journal of Demographic Economics.

3. Abstract:

This paper quantifies how sex-selection technology affects long-run population growth in China. We develop and estimate an overlapping-generations model with sequential fertility and sex-selection decisions, endogenous bride prices, and marriage formation. Eliminating sex-selection technology raises intergenerational population growth by 6.9 percentage points. The direct fertility effect is small because removing sex selection encourages childbearing to achieve preferred sex composition but also reduces the value of another birth by restoring uncertainty about child sex. The bride-price effect is small because a lower bride price encourages fertility by reducing the cost of marrying sons but also discourages it by reducing transfers received by newly married couples. Marriage formation is the dominant mechanism: normalizing the sex ratio raises population growth by 5.5 percentage points by increasing the number of marriages. Policy experiments show that girl-biased birth subsidies increase population growth more than gender-neutral subsidies, primarily by increasing future marriage formation.

4. Time: 12:15–13:15, September 24, 2026

5. Venue: Room B321, Zhixin Building, Central Campus, Shandong University