Moving Toward an Inclusive Housing Policy?: Migrants’ Access to Subsidized Housing in Urban China

Abstract

ABSTRACT China is rapidly urbanizing, with hundreds of millions of migrants leaving villages for cities. Under the discriminatory Household Registration (Hukou) System, migrants have been denied urban welfare benefits. The Chinese government has been promoting inclusive urbanization with significant policy changes in recent decades, yet its impact on migrants is not clear. This article examines whether housing is becoming more inclusive to migrants in Chinese cities. A review of recent policy changes at both central and local levels shows that although central housing policy is becoming more inclusive of migrants, local governments have largely remained exclusionary and exercise selective inclusion—allowing only migrants who meet additional, strict requirements to access subsidized housing. The empirical analyses, using two waves of the China Migrants Dynamic Survey, reveal that few migrants have access to subsidized housing despite the policy changes. Institutional barriers continue to exclude migrants from subsidized housing, although many barriers have become less important over time. It is clear that housing discrimination persists, and housing inclusion remains a distant dream for most migrants in China. This research highlights exclusion based on an important but uncommon birth-ascribed status defined by the government and provides a multiscalar perspective on the inclusion of domestic migrants.