This paper expands the migration-fertility linkage literature by examining the fertility impact of temporary migration in Hubei, China. The central hypothesis is that temporary migration affects migrants' fertility through a detachment process: The separation of temporary migrants' actual residence from their de jure residence creates a loophole in family planning administration, weakening the social control over their fertility. The analysis of annual order-specific births since 1979 suggests that temporary migrants exhibit significantly higher probabilities of having a second birth than permanent migrants and non-migrants once type of residence is controlled for; rural-rural temporary migrants have the highest fertility among all groups examined. The results lend support to the detachment hypothesis while indicating a strong anti-natal impact of urban residence. Rural-urban temporary migrants are not the ones to blame for increases in out-planning births in contemporary China, but their fertility would have been lower if there had been no detachment. Rural-rural temporary migrants are actually the escapees of the one-child-per-family policy.

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information processing Family Planning Programs Studies Birth Rate Antinatalist Policy Research Methodology China One Child Policy reproduction rate Family Planning Services health care planning Surveys population social policy demography population fertility methodology Fertility Measurements developing country Population Dynamics Sampling Studies Research Report Developing Countries epidemiology Asia policy Far East Eastern Asia fertility Temporary Migration Family Planning Policy fertility rate Article rural-urban migration migration Health Planning Demographic Factors research Emigration and Immigration public policy family planning population migration Population Policy Data Collection