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Housing prices and son preference: Evidence from China’s housing reform

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  • Rufei Guo
  • Qian Wang
  • Junjian Yi
  • Junsen Zhang

Abstract

Do high housing prices reduce the demand for sons? As Chinese parents need to acquire houses for their sons’ marriage, high housing prices increase the cost of sons relative to daughters. We exploit China's housing reform in the 1990s as a natural experiment to identify the effect of housing prices on demand for sons. We find that housing prices have no effect on the probability of having a son at the first birth. High housing prices reduce the probability of having a son at the second birth, especially when the first‐born is a daughter. A 10% increase in housing prices reduces the probability of having a son at the second birth by 0.78 percentage points. The findings remain robust when using aggregate prefecture‐cohort data for the post‐reform period.

Suggested Citation

  • Rufei Guo & Qian Wang & Junjian Yi & Junsen Zhang, 2022. "Housing prices and son preference: Evidence from China’s housing reform," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(3), pages 421-446, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:ectrin:v:30:y:2022:i:3:p:421-446
    DOI: 10.1111/ecot.12306
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