The Malaysian Insider, 9 sep 2011I am more interested in the impact of housing affordability on our fertility rate because the IPS study reminded me of comments by a National University of Singapore don last week on an article which contained observations linking housing affordability to fertility rates. The article was based on a study now presented in detail at the Singapore Centre for Applied and Policy Economics website.
According to Dr Tilak Abeysinghe, economists have long argued that the “demand” for children has dropped because the “price” of children has gone up. The “price” of children includes the time cost to a woman. If the “price” effect is kept under control, “demand” for children should go up as household income increases. Unfortunately, this is not what the data shows. Full story
