scholarly journals Housing Inequality in Urban China: Theoretical Debates, Empirical Evidences, and Future Directions

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiping Fang ◽  
Zhilin Liu ◽  
Yulin Chen
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Economy ◽  
Urban Housing ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Housing Development ◽  
Institutional Changes ◽  
Housing Reform ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Housing Inequality ◽  
Recent Policy

Within three decades, the urban housing reform in China has changed access to housing from a system of socialist administrative allocation to that of more market-dominated housing development and consumption. Researchers have studied the socioeconomic and spatial consequences of these profound transformations. This review focuses on China’s housing inequality literature in relation to the changing origins, spatial patterns, and recent policy responses. The article reveals the unique features of China’s transitional economy along with massive urbanization, in which housing inequalities are rooted in socialism and strengthened by institutional changes of a state-led market economy.

scholarly journals Intergenerational housing asset transfer and the reproduction of housing inequality in urban China

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ling Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Wealth Inequality ◽  
Urban Housing ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Housing Status ◽  
Housing Inequality ◽  
Asset Transfer ◽  
Chinese General Social Survey

After the massive commodification of urban housing in the 1990s, housing inequality is now a major source of wealth inequality in urban China. Previous studies of housing inequality have rarely explored the extent and mechanisms of intergenerational housing inequality reproduction. This study fills this gap and examines how intergenerational housing asset transfer affects housing status in contemporary urban China. An analysis of data from the 2006 Chinese General Social Survey yields two important findings. First, ascribed factors such as parental social status have a greater influence than individuals’ own social status on their housing status. Second, intergenerational housing asset transfer has become an important mechanism of housing inequality reproduction. Elite parents are more likely to provide transferred assets, which prevents their downward-mobilised children from changing their relative housing status. Against the backdrop of rising wealth inequality in China, this study illustrates how the intergenerational transmission of economic resources is becoming an increasingly important mechanism of inequality reproduction.

Urban Housing Reform in China: A Review of Welfare Housing Development in Beijing (1987–1997)

1998 ◽  
Vol 17 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 55-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis K.W. WONG ◽  
Eddie C.M. HUI ◽  
Lucy S.P. KONG ◽  
Rodney HOWES
Keyword(s):  
Urban Housing ◽  
Housing Development ◽  
Housing Reform

A Room of One's Own: Housing Consumption and Residential Crowding in Transitional Urban China

2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youqin Huang
Keyword(s):  
Household Income ◽  
Housing Markets ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Housing Tenure ◽  
City Size ◽  
Housing Consumption ◽  
Housing Reform ◽  
Institutional Variables ◽  
Room Of One's Own ◽  
Socio Economic Factors

The goal of this paper is to evaluate the level and examine the dynamics of housing consumption and residential crowding in urban China almost a decade after the housing reform was launched. I argue that housing consumption and residential crowding are affected not only by demographic and socio-economic factors, as they are in market economies, but also by institutional factors that are unique to China because of the dualism in housing reform. Using a 1996 national survey, I find that the level of housing consumption is still low and residential crowding is common. A room of one's own continues to be a dream for most Chinese. However, Chinese households now have more control over their housing, and their housing behaviors are beginning to share similarities with the West. For example, life cycle, household income, housing tenure, and city size have similar effects on housing consumption and residential crowding as they do in Western housing markets. It is still clear, however, that the socialist institution—the hukou system—continues to influence housing consumption, although to a lesser extent than in the prereform period. Households with rural or temporary hukou are at a disadvantage in the housing market, in the sense that they occupy less spacious housing and suffer more from residential crowding than do those with urban and permanent hukou. Yet, these last are more constrained by institutional variables such as job and work-unit characteristics, which affect housing consumption differently across cities.

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