The Impact Of Household Demographic Structure On The Allocation Of Chinese Household Assets

Currently,China and the global economy have been greatly affected by the novel coronavirus.As the basic unit of social and economic development,the asset allocation structure of households has an important impact on the development of the national economy,the innovation of the financial market and the upgrading of the industrial structure.And demographic changes play a decisive role in family asset planning.With the adjustment of fertility policy and the change of residents’ concept,the family demographic structure tends to be complicated.Based on this,it is important to investigate the impact of different household demographics on Chinese household asset allocation by taking Chinese households as the research object.This paper uses the 2019 China Household Finance Survey(CHFS)data.The elderly dependency ratio,child dependency ratio,household size,and sex ratio were selected as explanatory variables to measure household demographic structure.The four influencing factors of householders’ personal characteristics,household wealth characteristics,geographical characteristics and psychological characteristics are selected as the control variables.The Probit model and Tobit model are used to study the effects of different household demographic structures on allocation preferences and proportions in four types of household assets: property,business and industrial assets,risky financial assets and savings assets.The results were subjected to robustness tests,and then explore the heterogenetiy of the effect of household demographics on asset allocation.Finally,to avoid selection bias,the endogeneity analysis of the variables is conducted using Propensity Score Matching(PSM)to verify the empirical model and the research results.This paper draws the following conclusions.First,due to the influence of intergen-erational transfer,the old-age dependency ratio signifycantly increases the propensity and proportion of household property allocation,and suppresses investment preferences and proportions in business and risky financial assets.The child support ratio has a significant dampening effect on household allocation preferences for property,risky financial assets and risky financial asset ratios,and a facilitating effect on the tendency to allocate savings assets.Second,the increase in household size reduces the risk taken by the household,therefore,it has a significant contribution to the allocation preferences and ratios of property,business and risky financial assets,and has a significant negative effect on the household to make savings.Third,households with a high proportion of males prefer to allocate to property,business and industrial assets,and have a lower preference and proportion of investment in risky financial assets.Fourth,there are significant urban-rural and regional differences in the impact of demographics on household asset allocation.Finally,based on the research findings,the paper puts forward relevant policy recommendations in the current situation of China’s economic development.