Homeownership pathways and fertility in urban China

Rising housing inequality and declining fertility have characterized Chinese cities. The co-existence of unprecedented housing privatization and state-sponsored housing schemes have created a hybrid homeownership regime of various market and non-market pathways. We find systematic associations between homeownership pathways and the cumulative fertility of urban families, accounting for family characteristics, housing conditions, local economic development, and housing prices. Homeowners via market pathways have higher fertility than homeowners via state-sponsored pathways do, highlighting the importance of family wealth and institutional autonomy. However, renters of marketed homes have even higher fertility than homeowners do. Further evidence underscores the local/non-local hukou status as an institutional barrier that shapes different reproduction patterns between natives and internal migrants. Renters' high fertility were only observed among non-local hukou families, who likely faced trade-offs between homeownership and raising children with their disadvantaged access to local social benefits. Meanwhile, local housing prices only moderate the associations between homeownership pathways and fertility for local hukou families.