PONE-D-24-51386Elderly Care Expectation how to Influence the Fertility Desire: Evidence from Chinese General Social Survey DataPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The manuscript has been evaluated by two reviewers, and their comments are available below.

The reviewers have raised a number of major concerns. Could you please carefully revise the manuscript to address all comments raised?

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Steve Zimmerman, PhD

Senior Editor, PLOS One

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: No

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: This submission does not adhere to the conventional structure expected of academic papers, resembling more of a report or thesis, which may render it tedious for readers. The introduction is excessively lengthy, which detracts from the overall flow of the paper. Additionally, the article lacks a suitable structured abstract.

Furthermore, all references are predominantly related to the context of the study and largely focus on China. The results has not been adequately analyzed nor compared with studies from other countries, making it difficult to ascertain the broader implications of the findings. Notably, the results and discussion sections are not clearly distinguishable from one another.

The number of tables included is excessive, which may overwhelm the reader. Moreover, the limitations of the study are not clearly outlined, raising concerns about the study's rigor.

he generalizability of the findings is also a concern; given the study's limited context, it is unclear how applicable the results are to other settings or populations. A discussion on the potential applicability of the results in different cultural or geographical contexts would enhance the paper's contribution to the literature.

Before any further evaluation, the article should be revised to conform to academic standards. It should be prepared in a concise manner for readers, including fundamental components of an academic paper and following the formatting guidelines of the journal.

Nonetheless, the topic of the study is indeed interesting and holds potential value.

Reviewer #2: According to the authors they attempted to combine the two social issues of elderly care and fertility, and put forward what they describe as relevant policies and enlightenment through quantitative analysis and research, so as to promote better social development. The paper is mostly descriptive.

They did much work and the paper is generally well written. However, it is cumbersome to read and keeping track of all the abbreviations was a challenge. The modeling made sense. However, the manuscript lacks clarity in several palaces.

The propensity scoring is not well explained or presented. What was the cutoff threshold to declare something well matched? Although the sample size is quite adequate how was the sample size effected after all the matching? Table 8 is poorly labeled. Tell the reader what the treatment and control is (presumably the empirical sample vs. the propensity sample. If not, then what exactly?). Footnotes would be helpful. They make the statement, “To address this, propensity score matching (PSM) is employed to reduce systematic biases(k=2,cal=0.01)” What are k and cal? A statistician would perhaps understand, but some readers may need help with this. Also, why make the statement that, “The consistency between the propensity score matching results and the logistic regression results confirms the validity of hypotheses H1a, H1b, and H1c.”? Table 8 shows some rather large Z’s or is the reviewer missing something. Please clarify?

Also the interpretations of the findings are their interpretations. Was any attempt made to get some expert qualitative interpretation of the findings from the survey? In addition, it seems that the tables in the supplement are redundant. Please edit the paper for statistical clarification as noted and in general. Also, please give an objective assessment of any other limitations.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Elderly Care Expectation how to Influence the Fertility Desire: Evidence from Chinese General Social Survey Data

PONE-D-24-51386R1

Dear Dr. Yang,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Chhabi Lal Ranabhat

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: I think that the authors did a great job addressing reviewers' comments. The punctuation is incorrect in some instances.

no more comments.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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