Housing aspects of fertility policy: China’s experience

China’s specific feature is the use of housing tools to implement demographic policy: birth control, population aging compensation, and accelerated urbanization as a base for further economic growth based on post-industrial modernization and innovation. Abolition of the compulsory single-child policy in 2016, which lasted for more than 30 years, did not lead to the expected increase in the birth rate, and most often the rejection of the second child was explained by financial and housing problems. The extraordinary role of the residential real estate sector in China’s economic development has contributed to the housing boom, the reproductive consequences of which are caused by the housing status of different groups of the population (owners and tenants of commercial and social housing), institutional specifics (hukou registration system, taxes) and socio-demographic differentiation of regions. Although rising housing prices increase both the incomes of owners and the expenses of tenants, the birth rate remains low everywhere. Since national housing policy measures are implemented at the provincial level under the conditions of executive autonomy of local self-government, regional and municipal authorities independently choose the most effective ones to stimulate the birth rate. The diversity of the housing sector, which combines the features of the modern market and the traditions of the national planned economy, makes it possible to link the requirements for consumers of social housing with the number of children born and the reproductive prospects of the family, to purchase second homes for the «floating» population as temporary housing for student children, and to take into account the quality of educational institutions in the school district when deciding on the birth of a child. Of particular interest is China’s experience in the evolution of pronatal demographic policy measures at the stages of abandoning single-child family, allowing two-child family and stimulating three-child family starting in 2021 in regions with different birth rates.

China, housing, privatization, rental housing, second homes, demographic policy, fertility