The Influence Of The Child Sex Of The One-child Families On Family Consumption Behavior

Since the founding of New China,our country has successively implemented a variety of birth control policies.Under the influence of the traditional agricultural economy,the sex imbalance of the birth population has increased.The imbalance of the sex structure of the population has led to serious male marriage squeeze in China.In traditional marriage customs,men need to bear large expenses related to the "betrothal gift" during marriage.Having a house and a car has become a prerequisite for men to enter the marriage market at this stage.Real-estate expenditure is the core expenditure of boys’ families when they prepare for their marriage.The rapidly rising housing prices may cause the consumption behavior of families with boys and girls to show a big difference.This paper selects only-child families as the research object,pays attention to the impact of children’s sex on family consumption behavior,and selects data from the China Household Finance Survey(CHFS)in 2017,from the total annual consumption expenditure of the family,the total savings of the family,and the purchase of a house except for real-estate three dimensions of decision-making,by controlling the family’s annual total income,children’s demographic characteristics(child sex,children’s age,children’s age squared,children’s mating situation,children’s occupational level),parents’ demographic characteristics(father’s age,father’s age squared,father’s education years,father’s occupation level,mother’s age,mother’s age squared,mother’s education years,mother’s occupation level),regional related variables(urbanrural regional variables,regional variables,child sex and urban-rural regional interaction items,child sex and regional interaction items,etc.variable),constructing the OLS model and the Probit model to empirically study the impact of the sex of the children in the one-child family on family consumption behavior.Research indicates:Firstly,the sex of the children has a significant impact on the total annual consumption expenditure of the family when only controlling the sex of the children and the total annual income of the family.The total annual consumption expenditure of the family excluding real-estate is 11.5% less than that of the girl family,which increases the children and parents.The conclusion after the demographic characteristics variable is still valid,but the influence of the child’s sex completely disappeared after controlling for the regional variable,which means that overall,the child’s sex has no significant effect on the family’s total annual consumption expenditure except for real-estate.In addition,the situation of children’s marriage,total family income,parents’ years of education,and parents’ occupational levels all significantly affect the family’s annual total consumption expenditure,showing a positive correlation.Secondly,the sex effect of children is only significant when the control variables are the sex of the children and the total annual income of the family.The average total savings of boy households is19.0% less than that of girl households.The sex effect is no longer significant after adding other control variables,indicating that from the overall in other words,the sex of the children has no significant effect on the total savings of the family.The annual total family income,the individual occupation and the individual’s years of education that determine the socioeconomic status of the family significantly affect the total family savings.Thirdly,the sex of the children significantly affects the number of realestate owned by the family and the decision to buy or build a new house.The specific manifestation is that the sex of the children in the first set of self-occupied households has no significant impact on the second set.The tendency of boy’s families to buy houses is significantly greater than that of girl families.Families with children over the age of 18 are more likely to own a second home than families under 18,and unmarried families are more motivated to buy houses than married families.For families with no house and only one house,boy families are more inclined to buy or build houses than girl families.Fourthly,the total annual household income significantly affects various household consumption behaviors,indicating that the income level has a decisive effect on the consumption level.The above phenomenon may be due to the fact that with the implementation of the one-child policy,there is only one child so that parents can only devote resources to their children indiscriminately.As a result,the total annual consumption expenditure and total family savings of only-child families other than real-estate There is no obvious sex difference.However,the unbalanced sex ratio in marriage makes boy families face greater marital pressure,while girl families have no such concerns.Therefore,the sex of their children significantly affects the family’s house purchase decision.Purchasing houses to enhance their competitiveness in the marriage market has become the most important part of the boy family’s consumption decision.