Housing burden across Chinese cities: Spatio-temporal patterns and influential factors

Abstract

Over the past several decades, the issue of housing burden has emerged as a critical global challenge, with China serving as a pivotal case study amid its urbanization surge. Previous research has mainly focused on the purchasing aspects of housing burden within isolated urban contexts, often overlooking the significance of rental burden. Employing a panel dataset of 270 Chinese cities from 2014 to 2020, this article analyzes the spatial-temporal patterns of purchasing and rental burden across those cities. Furthermore, based on a proposed analytical framework, this article empirically examines the factors influencing the housing burden. This article finds that the housing burden in China is mainly concentrated in some major cities and city-regions, and the influential factors of the purchasing and rental burden vary. This article contributes to a comprehensive understanding of China's landscape of housing burden, which is critical for designing more efficient and inclusive housing policies globally.