IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/inrsre/v43y2020i5p423-449.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do House Prices Affect Fertility Behavior in China? An Empirical Examination

Author

Listed:
  • William A. V. Clark
  • Daichun Yi
  • Xin Zhang

Abstract

The article provides findings for China that are consistent with the studies that document a negative relationship between the cost of housing and fertility. Although some studies have questioned the negative relationship between housing market prices and fertility, overall the evidence from this large sample study in China suggests that the original interpretation of a negative relationship is still viable. The research uses data from the China Household Finance Survey between 2013 and 2017 to show that there is an approximately 0.94-percentage-point decrease in the probability of having a child under two with a 1 percent increase in housing prices. The article provides instrumental models to account for endogeneity. The results are robust across city levels and by wife’s age. The negative effect is significant in the thirty-five large cities in China but not significant for other smaller cities.

Suggested Citation

  • William A. V. Clark & Daichun Yi & Xin Zhang, 2020. "Do House Prices Affect Fertility Behavior in China? An Empirical Examination," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 43(5), pages 423-449, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:inrsre:v:43:y:2020:i:5:p:423-449
    DOI: 10.1177/0160017620922885
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0160017620922885
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0160017620922885?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dettling, Lisa J. & Kearney, Melissa S., 2014. "House prices and birth rates: The impact of the real estate market on the decision to have a baby," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 82-100.
    2. Shang-Jin Wei & Xiaobo Zhang, 2011. "The Competitive Saving Motive: Evidence from Rising Sex Ratios and Savings Rates in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(3), pages 511-564.
    3. Walker, James R, 1995. "The Effect of Public Policies on Recent Swedish Fertility Behavior," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 8(3), pages 223-251, August.
    4. James Feyrer & Bruce Sacerdote & Ariel Dora Stern, 2008. "Will the Stork Return to Europe and Japan? Understanding Fertility within Developed Nations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    5. Michael F. Lovenheim & Kevin J. Mumford, 2013. "Do Family Wealth Shocks Affect Fertility Choices? Evidence from the Housing Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 464-475, May.
    6. Simon, Curtis J. & Tamura, Robert, 2009. "Do higher rents discourage fertility? Evidence from U.S. cities, 1940-2000," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 33-42, January.
    7. Clark, Jeremy & Ferrer, Ana, 2019. "The effect of house prices on fertility: Evidence from Canada," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-32.
    8. Jing Wu & Yongheng Deng & Hongyu Liu, 2014. "House Price Index Construction in the Nascent Housing Market: The Case of China," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 522-545, April.
    9. Hill Kulu & Andres Vikat, 2007. "Fertility differences by housing type: an effect of housing conditions or of selective moves?," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2007-014, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    10. R. Lesthaeghe & K. Neels, 2002. "From the First to the Second Demographic Transition: An Interpretation of the Spatial Continuity of Demographic Innovation in France, Belgium and Switzerland," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 325-360, December.
    11. William A.V. Clark, 2012. "Do women delay family formation in expensive housing markets?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 27(1), pages 1-24.
    12. Hill Kulu & Andres Vikat, 2007. "Fertility differences by housing type," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 17(26), pages 775-802.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lifang Yan & Wenzhong Ye, 2023. "How Do House Prices and Financial Expenditure Affect Birth Rate? New Evidence from the Dynamic Threshold Panel Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-17, February.
    2. Li, Xiaoyin & Winters, John, 2024. "Fertility Divergence across Large and Small Areas," ISU General Staff Papers 202402081437060000, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    3. Yiqing Xing & Clifford Silver Tarimo & Weicun Ren & Liang Zhang, 2022. "The Impact of Health Insurance Policy on the Fertility Intention of Rural Floating Population in China: Empirical Evidence from Cross-Sectional Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(1), pages 1-16, December.
    4. Xiaotian Zhang & Xiaoyun Liu & Yang Wang & Lulin Zhou & Xiaoran Cheng, 2022. "Sustainable Development of China’s Maternity Insurance System in the Context of Population Policy Changes: Using a Grounded Theory Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-19, February.
    5. Yu Yang & Rongxin He & Ning Zhang & Liming Li, 2023. "Second-Child Fertility Intentions among Urban Women in China: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(4), pages 1-16, February.
    6. Ermanno Affuso & Khandokar Istiak & James Swofford, 2022. "Interest Rates, House Prices, Fertility, and the Macroeconomy," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-17, September.
    7. Lu Wang & Rose Gilroy, 2021. "The Role of Housing in Facilitating Middle-Class Family Practices in China: A Case Study of Tianjin," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-11, November.
    8. Meng, Lina & Peng, Lu & Zhou, Yinggang, 2023. "Do housing booms reduce fertility intentions? Evidence from the new two-child policy in China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    9. Chen, Nana & Xu, Hangtian, 2021. "Why has the birth rate relatively increased in China's wealthy cities?," MPRA Paper 105960, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Qiang He & Xin Deng & Chuan Li & Zhongcheng Yan & Yanbin Qi, 2022. "The Impact of Rural Population Mobility on Fertility Intention under the Comprehensive Two-Child Policy: Evidence from Rural China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(12), pages 1-17, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mimi Liu & Jeremy Clark, 2017. "The effect of the price or rental cost of housing on family size: a theoretical analysis with reference to New Zealand," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(3), pages 281-301, September.
    2. Nicoletta Balbo & Francesco C. Billari & Melinda Mills, 2013. "Fertility in Advanced Societies: A Review of Research," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(1), pages 1-38, February.
    3. Ana Ferrer & Jeremy Clark, 2016. "The Effect of Housing Price Changes on Fertility: Evidence from Canada," Working Papers 1603, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Sep 2016.
    4. Atalay, Kadir & Li, Ang & Whelan, Stephen, 2021. "Housing wealth, fertility intentions and fertility," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    5. Clark, Jeremy & Ferrer, Ana, 2019. "The effect of house prices on fertility: Evidence from Canada," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-32.
    6. Hill Kulu & Fiona Steele, 2013. "Interrelationships Between Childbearing and Housing Transitions in the Family Life Course," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(5), pages 1687-1714, October.
    7. Enström Öst, Cecilia & Wilhelmsson, Mats, 2019. "The long-term consequences of youth housing for childbearing and higher education," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 845-858.
    8. Clara H. Mulder, 2013. "Family dynamics and housing," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(14), pages 355-378.
    9. William A.V. Clark, 2012. "Do women delay family formation in expensive housing markets?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 27(1), pages 1-24.
    10. Pei-Syuan Lin & Chin-Oh Chang & Tien Foo Sing, 2016. "Do housing options affect child birth decisions? Evidence from Taiwan," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(16), pages 3527-3546, December.
    11. Day, Creina & Guest, Ross, 2016. "Fertility and female wages: A new link via house prices," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 121-132.
    12. Chen, Nana & Xu, Hangtian, 2021. "Why has the birth rate relatively increased in China's wealthy cities?," MPRA Paper 105960, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Yongxiao Du & Hao Dong, 2023. "Homeownership pathways and fertility in urban China," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 1-15, September.
    14. Gianluca Egidi & Luca Salvati & Andrea Falcone & Giovanni Quaranta & Rosanna Salvia & Renata Vcelakova & Antonio Giménez-Morera, 2021. "Re-Framing the Latent Nexus between Land-Use Change, Urbanization and Demographic Transitions in Advanced Economies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-17, January.
    15. Liu, Jing & Xing, Chunbing & Zhang, Qiong, 2020. "House price, fertility rates and reproductive intentions," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    16. Daysal, N. Meltem & Lovenheim, Michael & Siersbæk, Nikolaj & Wasser, David N., 2021. "Home prices, fertility, and early-life health outcomes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    17. Xiao-Cui Yin & Chi-Wei Su, 2021. "House Prices and China's Birth Rate - A Note," Asian Economics Letters, Asia-Pacific Applied Economics Association, vol. 2(2), pages 1-4.
    18. Keisuke Kondo, 2019. "Does agglomeration discourage fertility? Evidence from the Japanese General Social Survey 2000–2010," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 677-704.
    19. William A.V. Clark & Daichun Yi, 2020. "Transitions to partnership and parenthood: Is China still traditional?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(6), pages 143-168.
    20. Meng, Lina & Peng, Lu & Zhou, Yinggang, 2023. "Do housing booms reduce fertility intentions? Evidence from the new two-child policy in China," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:inrsre:v:43:y:2020:i:5:p:423-449. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.