Taking the pressure off school competition may do more for birth rates than cash bonuses. After China banned for-profit private tutoring in 2021, parents said they were noticeably more willing to have another child, enough to lift expected total fertility by 7 to 8%.
The study is by Juanjuan Meng, Hui Wang and Yu (Alan) Yang of Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management and Mingshan Zhang of China Unicom. It was published online in the Economic Journal on September 26, 2025.
A sudden ban on a $120 billion industry
On July 24, 2021, China’s central government effectively shut down for-profit after-school tutoring for students in grades 1 to 9. Tutoring firms had to become non-profits, could not raise capital freely and could not teach core subjects on weekends or holidays.
The industry had been valued at around $120 billion in 2020, about 0.8% of China’s GDP. By the end of the first semester after the ban, the Ministry of Education reported 83.8% fewer in-person tutoring institutions.
Asking parents two questions
In early spring 2022, the researchers surveyed parents through a national educational cloud platform, collecting answers from 1,154 families in 136 cities across 28 provinces. Each parent gave the probability of having another child with and without the ban.
With the ban in place, the stated chance of having a second child was 41.9% higher, and of a third child 56.2% higher, than under the no-ban scenario. If fully realised, that equals a 7% rise in the total fertility rate.
To rule out parents simply telling researchers what they wanted to hear, the team ran a second survey of 1,348 people at the end of 2024, where each person saw only one scenario. It produced a similar 8% rise in expected total fertility.
The effect was smaller for mothers than fathers, and smaller for parents with at least a bachelor’s degree. Families who had spent the most time and money on tutoring before the ban showed the biggest increases.
Competition mattered more than money
Parents rated how competitive their child’s education would be at 8.3 out of 10 without the ban, and that rating fell by 44% with the ban. Only 45% of the main sample expected other parents in their child’s grade to cut tutoring.
A decomposition found that lower perceived competition was the biggest single driver of the higher intentions. Better parental health and parent-child relationships came next, ahead of savings in time and money.
Actual births pointed the same way. Comparing cities by how heavily they had relied on tutoring, a one-standard-deviation rise in policy intensity meant a 7.0% slower decline in the birth rate between 2020 and 2023.
The authors note that reaching a similar 7% fertility gain through baby subsidies typically costs a country about 1% of GDP.
Study Details:
- Title: Education Competition and Fertility Intention: Evidence from China’s Private Tutoring Ban
- Authors: Juanjuan Meng, Hui Wang, Yu (Alan) Yang, Mingshan Zhang
- Journal: The Economic Journal
- Publication Date: September 26, 2025
- DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueaf096