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Homeownership and happiness in urban China

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Abstract

Our paper explores the relationship between home ownership and happiness for local residents and migrants in Chinese cities. Our analysis is guided by literature about home ownership, life satisfaction, international migration, and internal migration. The analysis is based on the 2015 China Household Finance Survey. We compared the level of happiness by home ownership status among local residents, rural migrants and urban migrants. We found that, among homeowners, both rural migrants and local residents are happier than urban migrants. Our results also indicate that rural migrants who own homes in urban areas are significantly happier than non-homeowners, but rural migrants who own homes in rural areas are not significantly happier than non-homeowners. In addition, the results reveal that the level of happiness is not related to whether or not they live in the homes that they own. Implications of the findings are discussed.

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Fig. 1

Data sources: a 1980–1990: homeownership rate was around 20 per cent in the 1980s (Yi and Huang, 2014). Detailed data source is not clear. b 1996: based on a national survey of Life Histories and Social Change in Contemporary China (Huang and Clark 2002). c 2000: based on census in 2000 (Huang 2004). Housing information was not included in the national census until the 2000 census. d 2005: based on mini-censes in 2005 (Chen 2011). e 2010: based on census in 2010 (Yi and Huang 2014). f 2011: based on the 2011 China Household Finance Survey (Gan et al. 2012)

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Notes

  1. We regard the No. 23 decree issued by State Council in July 1998, which symbolizes the formal cancellation of welfare housing system, as the starting point of Chinese housing market (Yang and Chen 2014).

  2. The data suggest that most rural migrants are young. Their average age is 37. About 11% of them are younger than 25 years old.

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Funding

The fund was provided by Faculty Strategic Development Research Fund, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Eric Fong & Yiqing Gan

  2. Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

    Yue Yuan

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  1. Eric Fong
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  2. Yue Yuan
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  3. Yiqing Gan
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Correspondence to Eric Fong.

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Fong, E., Yuan, Y. & Gan, Y. Homeownership and happiness in urban China. J Hous and the Built Environ 36, 153–170 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-020-09728-6

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