IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chieco/v97y2026ics1043951x26000519.html

The child penalty in the rental housing market: Do landlords discriminate couples with children?

Author

Listed:
  • Liu, Ziming
  • Wu, Xinrui
  • Yu, Zihan
  • Dong, Zhaoyingzi
  • Rommel, Jens

Abstract

We conduct a correspondence study to investigate whether couples with child are discriminated by landlords in rental housing markets. Based on 2390 messages sent to landlords across four megacities in China, we find that couples with children are 8.0 percentage points (pp) less likely to receive responses from landlords, and 5.9 pp. less likely to be invited to an open house by landlords. The responses received by couples with children are shorter and take longer on average. Discrimination is more pronounced in urban areas and during periods of heightened housing demand, such as after the Chinese New Year. We document empirical evidence of discrimination of couples with children in rental housing markets and the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of this discrimination, which pose a challenge for fertility policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Liu, Ziming & Wu, Xinrui & Yu, Zihan & Dong, Zhaoyingzi & Rommel, Jens, 2026. "The child penalty in the rental housing market: Do landlords discriminate couples with children?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:97:y:2026:i:c:s1043951x26000519
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2026.102701
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X26000519
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chieco.2026.102701?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:chieco:v:97:y:2026:i:c:s1043951x26000519. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco .

    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.