 Does the marginal child increase household debt? – Evidence from the new fertility policy in ChinaXin Deng and Mingzhe Yu International Review of Financial Analysis, 2021, vol. 77, issue C Abstract: This paper investigates the effects of the number of children on household debt. Using data from the China Household Finance Survey in 2015 and 2017, this paper finds a positive relationship between the number of children in a family and household debt. To obtain a causal explanation via further analysis, this paper creates a natural experiment based on the new fertility policy implemented in China since 2016, and the results show that a marginal child significantly increases a family's household debt. Moreover, heterogeneous analysis reveals that the marginal child's effect on debt is larger both in households without a child before the marginal child's birth and in households located in urban areas. Finally, the results of this paper partly explain why the fertility rate has been low in China in recent years. The paper suggests feasible policies to raise the fertility rate. Keywords: Household debt; Marginal child; Fertility policy; Difference-in-difference (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:finana:v:77:y:2021:i:c:s105752192100199x DOI: 10.1016/j.irfa.2021.101870 Access Statistics for this article International Review of Financial Analysis is currently edited by B.M. Lucey More articles in International Review of Financial Analysis from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.