Family Structure and Home Ownership: Evidence from China

53 Pages Posted: 31 Jan 2017

See all articles by Shun Wang

Shun Wang

KDI School of Public Policy and Management

Weina Zhou

Dalhousie University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 20, 2016

Abstract

This paper studies how individuals, particularly low-income individuals, have financed housing purchases since the housing market was privatized in urban China in the 1990s. To the surprise of many policy makers and economists, more than 80% of the households in urban China owned private housing by the end of 2010. In contrast to most developed countries, we find that male siblings are important borrowing resources to purchase housing. Conditional on the number of siblings, having more brothers instead of sisters increases the probability of owning housing among male individuals born during the baby boom (1949-1978) in urban China. However, there is no such brother effect for females. The brother effect is stronger for males with low income or low levels of education and is also stronger when brothers are wealthier. Our results are robust to different model specifications.

Suggested Citation

Wang, Shun and Zhou, Weina, Family Structure and Home Ownership: Evidence from China (December 20, 2016). KDI School of Pub Policy & Management Paper No. 17-01, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2904905 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2904905

Shun Wang (Contact Author)

KDI School of Public Policy and Management ( email )

P.O. Box 184
Seoul, 130-868
Korea, Republic of (South Korea)

Weina Zhou

Dalhousie University ( email )

6225 University Avenue
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3H 4H7
Canada

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