Transitional Urban China Research Articles

Consumption and Tenure Choice of Multiple Homes in Transitional Urban China

As China is becoming a country of homeowners, multiple homeownership is emerging. The existing literature on tenure choice focuses on the primary home and the literature on the consumption of multiple homes focuses on second homeownership only. We argue that decisions regarding whether to have multiple homes and what kind of tenures to have for multiple homes are all part of the complex decision-making for the ‘housing portfolio’, thus have to be understood together. With a conceptual framework that features both socio-economic and institutional determinants and 2005 China General Social Survey data, this paper studies the patterns and tenure dynamics of multiple homes in urban China. While life-cycle, affordability and generational transfer contribute to the consumption and tenure decision of multiple homes, the persisting household registration system and continuing allocation of subsidised housing lead to the peculiar tenure combination of renting one home and owning additional homes, and living in public housing and owning additional homes.

Housing Tenure Segment in Transitional China : a Case Study of Guangzhou

Housing reform in urban China aims to introduce market mechanisms into previously welfare-oriented housing system. Housing system in transitional urban China has dual characteristics of both market and planned economy with relatively complex structures of housing provision and housing tenure. To explore the features of housing spatial segment in transitional urban China by using a survey data conducted in Guangzhou in 2005, multi-level logistic regressions of housing choice between rent and own, between subsidized housing and open market housing, and between rent and own in subsidized housing and open market housing respectively, were performed. The results show that housing segment between rent and own depends more on household characteristics than institutional variable and age (head), hukou (household registration) types, household income and educational level are leading factors affecting this choice. Institutional variables are evidently more significant to affect housing segment between subsidized and open market housing because of different allocation rules of them. Residents with subsidized housing generally hold higher-status occupations, and have longer years of service and work in state-owned enterprises, collective enterprises and government departments. It is somewhat in line with the housing segment in market economy that household characteristics, especially life cycle change and household income, significantly affect tenure choice in open market housing, but tenure choice in subsidized housing depends more on institutional variables.

Social Structure and Personality during the Transformation of Urban China: A Preliminary Report of an Ongoing Research Project

AbstractThis paper presents the theoretical rationale and research design of an ongoing study of social structure and personality in transitional urban China. The study is designed to be precisely comparable to recent studies in Poland and Ukraine during the early stages of their transformation from socialism to nascent capitalism, as well as to earlier studies of the United States, Poland when it was socialist, and Japan during more stable times. The paper also presents evidence that the dimensions of personality measured in the previous studies, and the questions used to measure those dimensions, are as appropriate for a study of urban China as they were to studies of the United States, Poland, Japan, and Ukraine, during times both of relative social stability and of radical social change; moreover, these measures of personality are essentially invariant for Chinese cities of differing degrees of wealth and privatization, and for both genders.

Property Agents, Housing Markets and Housing Services in Transitional Urban China

This study examines the particular role, services and functions of property agents in the housing markets in mainland China. Since the implementation of housing market reforms, cities on the Chinese mainland have transferred from a centrally-directed, welfare-oriented housing system to a more decentralized, market-based one. Commodification of housing has expanded the opportunity of new market intermediaries to service the growing urban housing markets. Yet there appears to be little research on these agents, which bear similarity in name, but not exactly in operation, to those in a market society. Based upon insights from new institutional economics, this study examines how the existing institutions in China have constrained and facilitated their services in the housing transaction process. This micro-analytical study provides a different means towards understanding the market transformation of a socialist housing system.

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

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.

Renters' Housing Behaviour in Transitional Urban China

This paper aims to understand how renters make their housing decisions in urban China, where market mechanisms are being introduced into a previously welfare-oriented housing system. It is argued that while renters now enjoy more housing options, their choices are constrained not only by socio-economic factors as is the case in the West, but also by persisting socialist institutions such as the hukou system and work units. Using a national survey carried out in 1996 and a technique of multi-level modelling, the empirical study suggests that while private housing is becoming an important option, renters who can access public housing are still more likely to choose public housing because of heavy subsidies. Yet, renters with rural and temporary hukou, and those working in low-ranking work units are at a disadvantage in the housing market. In general they do not qualify for public housing, and private housing is their only option. Although the socialist housing system is under reform, it still defines renters' housing access and thus shapes their behaviour in the late 1990s.

Housing Tenure Choice in Transitional Urban China: A Multilevel Analysis

Using a 1996 national survey of housing in China and a multilevel modelling technique, we examine housing tenure choice in transitional urban China where households have been granted limited freedom of choice in the housing market since the housing reforms of 1988. We find that both market mechanisms and institutional forces affect households' tenure choice in urban China. While some socioeconomic factors such as age, household size, household income and housing price have similar effects on tenure choice as in the West, others such as the number of workers and marital status have rather different effects. In addition, factors characterising institutional relationships among the state, work units and households, such as hukou, job rank and work unit rank, still play important roles in tenure choice.

Politics and Markets: Dual Transformations

The articles published in this issue of the Journal help advance the debate on market reform in former socialist states. In our comment, besides dealing with data analysis issues, we suggest several ways to improve the level of debate about substantive issues. These suggestions include more attention to politics, including path dependence, and more attention to middle-level generalizations from other developing market societies.