关键词: 生育决策, 初育年龄, 商品房价格, 财富效应, 挤出效应

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of housing price on family fertility decision based on the data of 2014 China Family Panel Studies. We chose housing prices at the time of marriage and the time of five years after marriage as the variables influencing the decisions to have the first child and the second child respectively. We also discuss the mechanisms through which housing price affects fertility decisions by comparing families only having one house and those having two and more houses. Three main results are found in this paper. First, housing price has a significant negative effect on the probability of having children. The probability of having the first and the second child would decrease by 1.8% to 2.9% and 2.4% to 8.8% if housing price increases one thousand yuan. Second, housing price postpones the age of females to have the first child. The age at first birth would increase by 0.14 to 0.26 years if housing price increases one thousand yuan. Third, there are two theoretical mechanisms explaining the effect of housing price on fertility decision, namely wealth mechanism and crowding mechanism. In reality, the degree of influence from the crowding mechanism is much bigger than that of the wealth mechanism. The results of this paper imply that decline of fertility rate in recent years is related to the rapid increase of housing price and government need to restrain the irrational increase of housing price.

Keywords: Fertility Decision, Age at First Birth, Housing Price, Wealth Mechanism, Crowding Mechanism