Population aging, mobility, and real estate price: Evidence from cities in China

Abstract

Demographic factors are crucial to the sustainable development of one country. China's population is aging at an accelerating rate and, together with the increasing mobility between cities, some special demographic issues have formed, which is quite related to the urban real estate market. The paper aims to investigate how the population aging and mobility affect housing prices at the city level, by using a set of two-period panel data of 294 prefecture-level cities in China. The results show that an increase in elderly dependency ratio by 1% leads to a rise in housing prices by 0.368%. Meanwhile, an increase in urbanization level by 1% drives up housing prices by about 0.139%, and a rise in the ratio of inter-regional migration by 1% will increase housing prices by about 1.038%. Furthermore, the policy of purchase limits could weaken the positive impacts of elderly dependency ratio and inter-regional migration on housing prices and, thus, plays a moderating role on the relationship between demographic structure and housing prices.