High sex ratios and household portfolio choice in China

• Main Authors: LI, Wenchao, SONG, Changcheng, XU, Shu, YI, Junjian
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2022
• Subjects: Household portfolio choice; High sex ratios; Asian Studies; Portfolio and Security Analysis
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/6563; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/lkcsb_research/article/7562/viewcontent/High_Sex_Ratios_and_Household_Portfolio_Choice_in_.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This paper studies 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 1 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.