Housing unaffordability and adolescent academic achievement in urban China

Our study, based on longitudinal data from the 2010–2018 China Family Panel Studies, analyses the effect of housing unaffordability on the academic achievements of Chinese adolescents aged 10–18. To address the inherent endogeneity issues associated with housing unaffordability, we employ a fixed effects instrumental variable approach. Our findings reveal that housing unaffordability leads to a decline in adolescent Chinese performance by an average of 12%. This negative effect is more pronounced for specific groups: school-zoned housing buyers, rural-to-urban migrant families, girls with brothers, families who rent, lower-income households, older adolescents (aged 13–18), and those residing in less developed regions. Moreover, the results suggest that housing unaffordability adversely affects academic performance indirectly by increasing the likelihood of living in poor-quality housing, diminishing extracurricular academic tutoring and household essential spending, such as food, social capital, and education.