Attitude towards childbearing after implementation of new second-child policy among college students

Objective To examine the attitude towards childbearing among college students after the implementation of the new second-child polity(allowing couples to have a second child if one of the parents is the only child in his or her family).Methods A self-administrated questionnaire survey was carried out among 1957 college students selected with stratified random sampling from 8 universities in Liaoning province between April and June 2014.Results Of all respondents,925(47.2%) considered a family with two children being an ideal family model.There was a significant difference in the consideration on ideal family model between male and female students(χ²=12.313,P=0.006);the male students were more willing to choose double-income no kids(DINK)family model than the female students(14.64% vs.10.70%) and the female students preferred two children family(49.69% vs.42.37%).There were 71.3% of the students considering at the age between 25-29 years being an ideal time for getting married.The male students showed a significantly higher proportion of having an intension of getting married at the age of more than 30 years compared to the female students(18.3% vs.8.6%,χ²=52.244,P=0.000).About a half(49.36%)of the students considered that 2-5 years after marriage is an appropriate time for giving a birth to a child;more than a half(50.17%)of the students did not care about the gender of child and 54.67% of the students expressed the desire for rearing their child by their parents.Economic and living conditions and child-rearing cost were two top factors influencing childbearing willing among the students.Conclusion Two children family pattern becomes an ideal family model and the attitude of preferring boys to girls attenuates among college students after the implementation of the new second-child polity.