Research on the influence of house price to income ratio on female fertility intention and countermeasures – Research proof based on stata

. Low fertility rates are accelerating the aging of populations around the world. Developed countries experienced demographic shifts in the 20th century. Many developed countries are aging because of improved medical care, longer life expectancy and declining fertility rates. In the past decade or so, China has not escaped the impact of an aging population. The increase of the elderly population has brought great challenges to the social security system, so the aging problem in China deserves our attention. As we all know, the factors that affect people's fertility willingness are various, such as economic constraints, social and cultural influences, and traditional family concepts. In China, high housing prices, an important part of economic factors, are increasingly becoming an important constraint for urban population fertility decisions. Based on the data analysis of stata, this paper studies the impact of housing price on women's reproductive intention from 2015 to 2022. Through data analysis, it is concluded that housing price has a negative impact on women's reproductive intention in inverse proportion.


1.Research Background
With the completion of the seventh national census, China has a total of 1.412 billion people, still the world's most populous country.The proportion of middle-aged and elderly people is larger, and the proportion of infants and teenagers is relatively small.In 2021, the average life expectancy of China's population will be 77.3 years, which means that the residents born in the baby-boom background of the last 50 years in China will leave one after another in the near decade, when the death rate of China's population will further increase, and the continuous low birth rate will hardly fill the missing population.In the near future, the situation of negative population growth in our country may appear.The trend of China's aging society is difficult to block, but the stimulus method of increasing the national birth rate is still some.In recent years, China has introduced a series of population and social security policies.Among them, the adjustment of fertility policy aims to alleviate the negative effects of population aging and its low fertility rate.For example, the introduction of the "three-child policy", the provision of education fees, the implementation of maternity and paternity leave and so on.However, the effect of the policy is not as optimistic as expected, according to statistics, in 2021, China's birth rate is 7.52 per thousand, and the total fertility rate is only 1.3, even lower than the fertility rate of Japan.According to this analysis, there are many other reasons that lead to the decrease of birth rate year by year, such as high living cost, urbanization rate, unemployment rate of local population, elderly dependency ratio and young dependency ratio.Our country's housing market carried out the housing commercialization reform in 1998, which changed from welfare housing distribution to market transaction.In the early stage of the real estate industry, on the one hand, there was no reasonable market supervision; On the other hand, the level of housing prices is often accompanied by the high level of local governments' land transaction volume, which makes the real estate industry savage growth.According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, housing prices rose from 1,854 yuan per square meter in 1998 to 10,601 yuan per square meter in the first half of 2023.The increase is more than 5.7 times.As an important consumption of the national economy, the soaring housing price has increased people's living cost, and has a huge impact on the development of social economy and people's production and life.As an important consumption of the national economy, the surging house price has improved people's life, and has a huge impact on the development of social economy and people's production and life.American economists Easterlin and Crimmins believe that the cost of living is the key factor that transforms "natural birth" into "conscious birth control" (1985).Exploring the impact of housing price on women's fertility intention is conducive to providing valuable research basis for solving the problem of low fertility rate.

2.Literature review
In the existing studies, scholars have different understandings about the effect of housing price on fertility.Some studies have found that housing prices are directly proportional to the desire to have children.Using survey data from West Germany and the Netherlands, Mulder and wagner [1] found that households that owned property before marriage were more likely to have children, while households that did not own property were more likely to delay childbearing in order to gain happiness (2001); Lovenheim and Mumford [2] showed that for every $100,000 increase in a homeowner's home equity, the likelihood of having a child increased by 16 to 18 percent, based on changes in wealth associated with changes in home prices.Growth in housing wealth increases relative total fertility, and the responsiveness of fertility to housing wealth increases over time (2013).There are also research findings Housing prices are inversely proportional to the desire to have children.Sato study found that fertility rate is closely related to regional economic development and population concentration degree.Large city size has a positive impact on income, but a negative impact on fertility.Li Yonggang et [3]all believe that the rapid rise of housing prices has a significant inhibitory effect on residents' fertility willingness (2012)

Housing price changes and social status quo in Chinese cities
As an important consumption of the national economy, the soaring housing price has increased people's living cost, and has a huge impact on the development of social economy and people's production and life.According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, housing prices rose from 1,854 yuan per square meter in 1998 to 10,601 yuan per square meter in the first half of 2023.The increase is more than 5.7 times.With the gradual acceleration of China's reform and opening up, urbanization construction is also closely followed, our living environment and experience continue to improve, but the modern social development environment also means that the cost of birth continues to increase.Raising children involves a lot of costs, both direct and indirect.The direct cost in the economic concept refers to the direct capital expenditure of all costs related to biological survival costs, medical and health costs, education costs, marriage costs, etc. spent in the process of raising a child.The indirect cost refers to the opportunity cost of raising children, including all kinds of transferred income and time lost by each family due to the birth of life, in fact, the most important is the gain and loss of the mother.Because the mother is responsible for the conception of the child, and in traditional family life, the mother is usually responsible for the child care, at the cost of the loss of time value, the sacrifice of labor market income to care for the child, this part can also be seen as the opportunity cost of parenting costs.
Under our established constraints, as the cost of childbirth increases, people's willingness to have children will decline.High housing prices in some areas do affect people's willingness to have children.Starting from the traditional Chinese thought of living and working in peace and contentment, people want to provide a happy environment and place for themselves, their partners and children [4].Since the 21st century, housing prices continue to rise, rising house prices have been accompanied by high mortgage prices.Housing prices are so high that most buyers have to take out loans to complete the purchase.At the current wage level, if young people want to own their own property, most of the time they need to take out a loan to do so.Housing loans lasting for several decades have doubled the pressure of young people's life and work.Investigation shows that housing loan is the basic constitutive structure of family debt.Among the households with debt, 76.8 percent of them have housing loans, and the average household housing loan is 389,000 yuan, accounting for 75.9 percent of the total household debt.Many people buy homes in their 20s and carry 30-year mortgages; Young people in first -and second-tier cities may even face millions in loans.During this time, when there is economic instability, such as unemployment or health problems, the household's ability to withstand risks is very vulnerable.Especially due to the impact of the global epidemic, many young people are living in fear of unemployment.people'sliving costs continue to rise, and then because the house in the heart of the Chinese people is the foundation of a family, is just needed.Therefore, in this context, most of the working-age population is unwilling to marry, unwilling to have children, and fully devoted to their own work.Under the influence of cultural and various factors, the enthusiasm of young people to buy a house has not changed significantly against the background of high housing prices.But rising house prices and greater mortgage stress greatly affect People's Daily lives in many other ways.Household consumption in China has trended down since 2015, when a rapid rise in housing prices across the country worsened.The debt burden of the household, which curbs the consumption power of family members.Many young people choose to spend more time at work to pay their mortgage, saving money to cover financial risks.
The high cost of raising children will lead to a decline in the birth rate.

Empirical analysis 4.1 Reference model
In order to investigate the impact of the ratio of house price to income on the fertility rate and clarify the causal relationship between them, this paper sets up the following basic model; Ferwill=β0+βilnhp_in+βiẊi+ℇ Among them, I on behalf of individuals, Ferwill, on behalf of the women's childbearing willing hp_in on behalf of the city's housing price to income ratio, beta coefficient after I is prices taking natural logarithms.

Explained variables
In this paper, the main explained variable is the reproductive intention (ferwill) of the reproductive age group.Drawing on Xiao Guoan and Zhou Muyuan, [5] the survey method is based on the question "If there are no policy restrictions, would you like to have a child?" in the China General Social Survey Questionnaire.Related issues.According to the data table of China Statistical Yearbook, the survey period is generally from June to December of the current year.

4.2.2.Explanatory variable
The main explanatory variable of this paper is the ratio of house price to income (hp_in).According to the Data Table of China Statistical Yearbook [6], the survey period is generally from June to December of the current year, so this paper adopts the data of the housing price to income ratio one period behind as the explanatory variable.Drawing on the practice of Zhang Li et all [7], the ratio of house price to income is measured by the average salary of the respondents in the region and the employees in the same year, which can fully show the difficulty of the urban population of childbearing age to buy a house.The data comes from China Statistical Yearbook, because in this yearbook, only the provincial information of the respondents was disclosed in the comprehensive social survey of China, and the questionnaire did not involve housing price and other related questions, which can effectively avoid the endogenous problem between the control variables at the individual level and the family level.

4.2.3.Variable of control
Based on the existing literature, this paper analyzes from several aspects, and selects urbanization rate, unemployment rate, illiteracy rate, male/female ratio, old-age dependency ratio, juvenile dependency ratio and total dependency ratio as control variables.
The descriptive statistical results of the main variables in this paper are shown in Table 1.

Empirical study of the basic model
The empirical analysis of the basic model shows that the impact of housing price to income ratio on fertility intention shows a significant negative effect, and has a strong robustness.As shown in Table 2, from Column (1) to Column (4), after the continuous addition of control variables, the ratio of housing price to income is still significantly negative.Through the regression results, we can conclude that when the control variables of the ratio of men to women, the unemployment rate, the illiteracy rate and the total dependency ratio are successively added, the impact of the housing price-income ratio on the fertility intention of the population is always at the significant level of 1%, which has a strong explanatory power.Income status can comprehensively reflect an individual's education, ability, work experience and so on.On the other hand, it also shows an individual's human capital in work.When human capital is high, the opportunity cost of having children is large, and at this time the income effect of having children is smaller than the substitution effect, leading to a decline in fertility intentions.

5.Response plan and solution measures
Based on the China General Social Survey data from 2015 to 2022, this paper uses stata model to empirically analyze the impact of housing price to income ratio on the fertility intention of the working-age population.It can be concluded that the ratio of housing price to income significantly inhibits the fertility intention of the working-age population, that is, with the increase of housing price year by year, people's fertility intention decreases year by year.Faced with such a grim situation, the country should vigorously reform to change the status quo.Therefore, this paper suggests to improve the fertility intention of the population of childbearing age from the following aspects.
First, we should make positive macro-control on the real estate market to reduce the housing costs of contemporary young people.In addition, we should vigorously develop the housing rental market and actively improve the housing system with multi-subject supply, multi-channel guarantee and simultaneous rental and purchase.The state should continue to strengthen the control and regulation of commercial housing prices to prevent housing prices from rising too quickly Second, we should vigorously promote the concept of fertility in the new era and increase the fertility willingness of the right-age population.We should actively construct a traditional value-oriented conception of fertility.We should take the essence of traditional culture and discard the bad ones, and create a good social environment for young people based on the new residual concept of excellent traditional culture, and help the age-appropriate population accelerate the process of marriage and childbearing.
Third,formulate relevant laws and policies to re-plan and build the rental market.We will improve the rental housing market, crack down on dark intermediaries, strengthen monitoring of the housing rental market, and build and maintain a sound rental housing market.While vigorously developing the rental housing market, the country should publicize that "renting is as good as buying", change the housing concept of young people, and improve the related supporting facilities and services of rental housing in terms of policy.
Fourth, promote the fair distribution of educational resources, promote the reform of school choice, curb the culture of school choice, and crack down on malicious speculation of high school district housing.
Fifth, preferential policies for the settlement of talents should be widely carried out, so that excellent labor can be settled even if they do not have houses, and their children can go to school in the region even if they do not have houses.
Sixth, we should curb investment buying and forced buying, and make the price of commercial housing more reasonable.In short, the combination of measures such as controlling the vicious growth of housing prices, creating a good housing atmosphere and improving the concept of renting can make young people feel more at ease to have the next generation, so as to avoid the fertility rate falling off the cliff.
Encourage young people to give birth to good children, and at the same time respect the family key and family values of people of childbearing age.Fertility is not only a private matter, but also related to the strategic goal of national development and sustainable economic development.

Table 2 .
Results of regression