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Do women delay family formation in expensive housing markets?

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  • William A.V. Clark

    (University of California, Los Angeles)

Abstract

Background: Recent research by demographers and economists has examined the link between living costs and fertility outcomes. The literature has provided some evidence that high rents, or high housing costs, discourage fertility. Objective: I re-examine the hypothesis that delayed fertility (age at first birth) is related to the costs of housing measured either as rents or sales prices. Methods: I use data from the American Community Survey for 2006-2008 to construct mean age at first birth for women in a sample of 25 US metropolitan areas stratified by rents and sales prices. The sales prices for those metropolitan areas were from the National Association of Realtors. I use models of both aggregate relationships of mean age at first birth and metropolitan housing cost level measures and individual analyses of mean age and measures of ethnicity, education and labor force participation. Results: The effect of being in an expensive housing market is a delay of first births by three to four years, after controlling for education, ethnicity and labor market participation. However, the relatively modest fit of individual models suggest that while the housing market may play a role it is also clear that there is a complex structure to the decision- making around fertility, labor force participation and housing market entry. Overall completed fertility does not appear to be changed.

Suggested Citation

  • William A.V. Clark, 2012. "Do women delay family formation in expensive housing markets?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 27(1), pages 1-24.
  • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:27:y:2012:i:1
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2012.27.1
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Rafael González-Val, 2022. "House Prices and Marriage in Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-16, March.
    2. William A.V. Clark & Daichun Yi, 2020. "Transitions to partnership and parenthood: Is China still traditional?," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 43(6), pages 143-168.
    3. Clark, Jeremy & Ferrer, Ana, 2019. "The effect of house prices on fertility: Evidence from Canada," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 13, pages 1-32.
    4. Enström Öst, Cecilia & Wilhelmsson, Mats, 2019. "The long-term consequences of youth housing for childbearing and higher education," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 41(5), pages 845-858.
    5. Atalay, Kadir & Li, Ang & Whelan, Stephen, 2021. "Housing wealth, fertility intentions and fertility," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    6. Janna Bergsvik & Sara Cools & Rannveig K. Hart, 2020. "Explaining residential clustering of fertility," Discussion Papers 939, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    7. Ana Ferrer & Jeremy Clark, 2016. "The Effect of Housing Price Changes on Fertility: Evidence from Canada," Working Papers 1603, University of Waterloo, Department of Economics, revised Sep 2016.
    8. Janna Bergsvik, 2019. "Linking neighbors’ fertility. Third births in Norwegian neighborhoods," Discussion Papers 898, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    9. Mimi Liu & Jeremy Clark, 2017. "The effect of the price or rental cost of housing on family size: a theoretical analysis with reference to New Zealand," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(3), pages 281-301, September.
    10. John Ermisch & Fiona Steele, 2016. "Fertility expectations and residential mobility in Britain," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 35(54), pages 1561-1584.
    11. Clara Mulder, 2013. "Family dynamics and housing," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(14), pages 355-378.
    12. Gholipour, Hassan F. & Farzanegan, Mohammad Reza, 2015. "Marriage crisis and housing costs: Empirical evidence from provinces of Iran," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 107-123.
    13. Pei-Syuan Lin & Chin-Oh Chang & Tien Foo Sing, 2016. "Do housing options affect child birth decisions? Evidence from Taiwan," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(16), pages 3527-3546, December.
    14. Hill Kulu & Fiona Steele, 2013. "Interrelationships Between Childbearing and Housing Transitions in the Family Life Course," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(5), pages 1687-1714, October.
    15. Nachatter Singh Garha & Alda Botelho Azevedo, 2021. "Population and Housing (Mis)match in Lisbon, 1981–2018. A Challenge for an Aging Society," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-18, March.
    16. William A. V. Clark & Daichun Yi & Xin Zhang, 2020. "Do House Prices Affect Fertility Behavior in China? An Empirical Examination," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 43(5), pages 423-449, September.
    17. Beatrice D. Simo-Kengne & Lumengo Bonga-Bonga, 2020. "House prices and fertility in South Africa: A spatial econometric analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 3193-3210.
    18. Rory Coulter & Michael Thomas, 2019. "A new look at the housing antecedents of separation," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(26), pages 725-760.
    19. Ahmed Laatabi & Nicolas Marilleau & Tri Nguyen-Huu & Hassan Hbid & Mohamed Ait Babram, 2018. "ODD+2D: An ODD Based Protocol for Mapping Data to Empirical ABMs," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 21(2), pages 1-9.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    fertility; education; housing markets;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

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