From Housing Market to Maternity Ward?

How housing prices affect fertility rate:

Social scientists have long traced a connection between housing and fertility. When homes are scarce or beyond the means of young couples, as in the 1930s, couples delay marriage or have fewer children. This tendency helps account for the relatively dismal birth rates of many developed nations, said Robert Engelman, vice president for programs at the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research organization, and author of the forthcoming “More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want.”

“One reason there are so few children in Italy is that housing is so hard to come by,” Mr. Engelman said. “Houses are bigger in the U.S. and generally more available. That may help explain why Americans have more babies.”

Several population specialists emphasized that housing is just one influence on fertility, and difficult to tease out from other factors, like income or optimism. “If you lower the cost of housing, you’re going to lower the cost of raising a child,” said Seth Sanders, director of the Maryland Population Research Center at the University of Maryland. “But if you look at how much it costs to raise a child, only one-third of the cost is housing. So my guess is that the impact is not very large.”

The recent downturn in the economy and the housing market bodes poorly for a continued boomlet. Last year, the National Association of Home Builders reported that houses had stopped growing. Foreclosures discourage people from having children. “What could be happening now is that people will have wealth shock, and reduce need for everything, including children,” said Mr. Sanders of the Maryland Population Research Center.

Which would drive down house prices, making homes more affordable. Which could start the cycle again.

So does that mean that population is self-regulating? As the number of people increase, the price of housing goes up due to demand, raising the price of having children, leading to lower population levels? That should give Malthusians peace of mind.

On the other hand, I kinda like having people around. Read more on that here.