The housing status and two-child fertility willingness of floating population: Evidence from the Chinese General Social Survey

Abstract

In recent years, China’s fertility rate shows a declining trend with rapid urbanization and increasing housing prices. Based on the China General Social Survey (CGSS) data, for the first time, this paper investigates the effect of housing status on the two-child fertility willingness of China’s floating population using a Probit model combined with the propensity score matching method and the instrumental variable method. The results show that the floating population with self-owned housing has a significantly lower two-child fertility willingness than those living in rented housing. This finding remains robust after addressing the potential endogeneity problem. Moreover, the effect of housing status on the two-child fertility willingness of floating population varies with demographic characteristics. Furthermore, the heterogeneous analysis indicates that the floating population with two or more self-owned housings have higher two-child fertility willingness than those who have only one self-owned housing or who live in rented housing. The married without children and living in self-owned housing have lower two-child fertility willingness than the married with one or more children and living in self-owned housing.