Urban Housing Prices and Migration's Fertility Intentions: Based on the 2018 China Migrants' Dynamic Survey

TL;DR

This study examines how rising housing prices influence fertility intentions among China's mobile population, revealing that higher house prices decrease fertility willingness, especially among women, with infrastructure and demographic factors moderating this effect.

Contribution

It employs LPM and Probit models with instrumental variables to analyze the impact of house prices on fertility intentions using 2018 survey data, providing new insights into demographic-economic interactions.

Findings

Higher house prices reduce fertility intentions among female migrants.

Infrastructure moderates the effect of house prices on fertility.

Younger, educated women with smaller families are more willing to have children.

Abstract

While the size of China's mobile population continues to expand, the fertility rate is significantly lower than the stable generation replacement level of the population, and the structural imbalance of human resource supply has attracted widespread attention. This paper uses LPM and Probit models to estimate the impact of house prices on the fertility intentions of the mobile population based on data from the 2018 National Mobile Population Dynamics Monitoring Survey. The lagged land sales price is used as an instrumental variable of house price to mitigate the potential endogeneity problem. The results show that for every 100\% increase in the ratio of house price to household income of mobile population, the fertility intention of the female mobile population of working age at the inflow location will decrease by 4.42\%, and the marginal effect of relative house price on labor force fertility intention is EXP(-0.222); the sensitivity of mobile population fertility intention to house price is affected by the moderating effect of infrastructure construction at the inflow location. The willingness to have children in the inflow area is higher for female migrants of working age with lower age, smaller family size and higher education. Based on the above findings, the study attempts to provide a new practical perspective for the mainline institutional change and balanced economic development in China's economic transition phase.