Title: Housing Ownership, Intra-household Bargaining, and Family Decisions in China.  

Speaker: Jing Liu

Abstract: This study investigates into how the change of family housing wealth differing by housing ownership between spouses affect intra-household bargaining power and then a series of family decisions, taking advantage of an exogenous shock by legal change in Urban China. According to the judicial interpretation of China’s Marriage Law in 2011, the appreciation part of family houses purchased before marriage is no longer jointly owned by the couple but belongs to the side with his/her name registered. Based on data drawn from the 2010, 2012 and 2014 waves of China Family Panel Survey, we find that the appreciation of house would result in more bargaining power of husbands after the new marriage law as most of houses are registered under the husband’s name, which reflected as a lower female-specific consumption and educational expenditure, higher labor force participation of female and a longer time of female housework.

About Jing Liu: She is an associate professor in schoolofeconomics at CentralUniversityofFinanceandEconomics. She obtained her PhD degree in Economics at ChineseAcademyofSocialSciences. She specialized in labour economics and developmenteconomics.

Date: May, 25th, 2017

Time: 12:30-13:45 PM

Location: Room 608, Academic Hall, CUFE