Effects of China's one-child policy on group cooperation: survey evidence

摘要

This study examines whether Chinese workers born after the one-child policy (OCP) regime are really less cooperative in the workplace as postulated by the little emperors syndrome.' The increasing share of OCP generation workers in the Chinese workforce has created diversity in the group that requires examining whether intergenerational gap exists in the personality that can affect the level of cooperation in the group. We provide evidence that workers from the OCP generation are no less cooperative than the workers from the pre-OCP generation. We argue that strong Chinese culture influenced by the Confucius roots makes OCP generation workers cooperative although this generation is self-centric in the daily life.