High Sex Ratios and Household Portfolio Choice in China

Abstract

This work examines how high sex ratios (more men than women) affect household portfolio choice. Using data from a nationally representative Chinese household finance survey, we find that a one standard deviation increase in the sex ratio would raise the stock market participation rate by 2.9 percentage points, or 52.2 percent, for families with a son relative to families with a daughter. Our estimates imply that rising sex ratios explain around 10 percent of the significant growth in China’s stock market size in recent decades.