ABSTRACT Fertility intentions in East Asia are increasingly constrained by rising educational expenditures and growing parental educational aspirations. While existing studies have examined the relationship between homeownership and fertility, they typically treat homeownership as a homogeneous status, largely overlooking how homeownership is stratified by access to scarce, higher‐quality public educational resources. Using data from the Survey of Marriage and Fertility among Young Adult Women in Nine Provinces (Municipalities) in China (2025), we find that, compared with ownership of non‐school district housing, ownership of school district housing is positively associated with additional fertility intentions among mothers. This association remains robust across a comprehensive set of identification strategies and alternative specifications. We further identify two mediating mechanisms: elevated expectations regarding household financial prospects and children's future socioeconomic status. Moreover, the positive association is significantly stronger among highly educated households. By introducing the geography of opportunity perspective into the housing‐fertility nexus and focusing on school district housing, this study enriches the multidimensional understanding of housing stratification and extends existing research on the relationship between homeownership and fertility.
Chen et al. (Wed,) studied this question.