TY - JOUR
T1 - Fertility and housing
AU - Day, Creina
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2015/5/4
Y1 - 2015/5/4
N2 - Young households in Hong Kong face particularly steep increases in house prices and low fertility despite low gender wage gaps. The model of fertility and housing in this paper explains why fertility decline need not reverse as female wages rise relative to male wages where housing land is scarce. For given house prices, demand for children may rise with female relative wages if housing comprises a sufficiently large share of childrearing. If the user cost of housing falls with rising house prices then fertility also rises. For endogenous house prices, however, growth in wages and a burgeoning working age population raises the market price of housing. In turn, fertility no longer rises with female relative wages. The analysis provides a novel mechanism whereby high population support ratios depress fertility and the results fit recent evidence that house prices affect fertility.
AB - Young households in Hong Kong face particularly steep increases in house prices and low fertility despite low gender wage gaps. The model of fertility and housing in this paper explains why fertility decline need not reverse as female wages rise relative to male wages where housing land is scarce. For given house prices, demand for children may rise with female relative wages if housing comprises a sufficiently large share of childrearing. If the user cost of housing falls with rising house prices then fertility also rises. For endogenous house prices, however, growth in wages and a burgeoning working age population raises the market price of housing. In turn, fertility no longer rises with female relative wages. The analysis provides a novel mechanism whereby high population support ratios depress fertility and the results fit recent evidence that house prices affect fertility.
KW - fertility
KW - gender wages
KW - housing price
KW - working age population
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84941185740&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17538963.2015.1080907
DO - 10.1080/17538963.2015.1080907
M3 - Article
SN - 1753-8963
VL - 8
SP - 172
EP - 190
JO - China Economic Journal
JF - China Economic Journal
IS - 2
ER -