From Bricks to Babies: Housing Stock as a Determinant of Fertility

This paper explores the relationship between housing stock and fertility, not only through its effect on prices but also by alleviating housing scarcity and expanding the availability of homes for families. Both our theoretical model and empirical analysis, using Spanish provincial data on housing stock, new housing stock, and fertility, suggest that a sustained one percentage point increase in net housing growth rates leads to an increase in fertility rates between 1.13% and 3.36% over an extended period. In the specific case of Spanish provinces, we estimate they lost on average, between 0.7 and 1.7 children per hundred fertile women. JEL Classification: D10, J13, R31