The association between basic pension insurance and fertility intentions among flexibly employed workers in China's new forms of employment.

Introduction: Following the relaxation of China's fertility policy, the nation-a rapidly growing group in the platform economy-are predominantly young, of reproductive age, and generally lack adequate social security coverage. Their fertility intentions therefore merit particular attention. Methods: We conducted a stratified purposive survey across 23 provinces and municipalities, collecting 604 valid responses from NFE flexible workers. The analytical sample was restricted to ever‑married respondents with at least one child ( Results: Participation in basic pension insurance is significantly negatively associated with both Plan1 and Plan2 across all models. The average marginal effect from the Logit model indicates a reduction of 8.5 percentage points in the probability of intending a second child ( Discussion: These findings suggest that basic pension insurance may substitute for the traditional "raising children for old‑age support"motive, thereby dampening fertility intentions among NFE flexible workers. To balance old-age protection with fertility promotion, policy interventions could consider adjusting contribution rates, expanding social security coverage, and strengthening employment protection for female workers. Further research using panel or quasi‑experimental designs is needed to establish causality.