Abstract
Due to a shortage of qualified professionals, many international cities have implemented a range of policies to attract skilled migrants and retain them for permanent work in destination cities, aiming to take advantage of the globalized competition. Despite being relatively understudied, the role of housing is of utmost importance, especially if skilled migrants can be attracted to work and live in destination cities permanently. This study conceptualized housing wellbeing as subjective housing feelings and objective housing outcomes, aiming to disentangle the relationship between housing wellbeing and settlement intentions. Based on the 2019 questionnaire survey in Guangzhou, this study found that skilled migrants who have become homeowners in Guangzhou have a higher propensity to settle in Guangzhou than those without homeownership. Also, this study found an inverted U-shaped relationship between the number of rooms and settlement intentions. Moreover, when the housing size per person is between 16 and 20 m2, housing size per person is positively associated with settlement intentions; nevertheless, when the housing size per person is below 16 m2 or above 20 m2, there is nil relation between housing size per person and settlement intentions. Finally, although skilled migrants are not satisfied with the current housing situation, they are still willing to settle in Guangzhou permanently. This study has extended the knowledge of housing wellbeing and contributed to profoundly understanding the complex settlement intentions of skilled migrants.
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Notes
Hukou is the Chinese household registration system introduced to restrict excessive internal migration from small to large cities (Zhu & Österle, 2017). According to the attributes, Hukou can be divided into rural and urban Hukou. Every Chinese citizen has a Hukou, and Hukou status is inherited from either mother or father at birth (Zhu & Österle, 2017). More importantly, Hukou is registered in specific cities and is linked to access to local public welfare and benefits, particularly affordable housing and public education (Du et al., 2024). For example, affordable housing is prioritized to provide for locals (with local Hukou) rather than migrants (without local Hukou).
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This study was funded by National Social Science Foundation of China (grant number: 19BGL220).
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All authors have read and approved the submitted version of the paper. The specific contributions were as follows: Haitao Du: conceptualization, literature search, data analysis, writing—original draft, review and editing; Mengran Xu: writing—review and editing; Yiqian Wang: writing—review and editing; Lin Chen: data extraction and supervision.
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Du, H., Xu, M., Wang, Y. et al. Housing Wellbeing and Settlement Intentions of Skilled Migrants in China: the Effects of Subjective Housing Feelings and Objective Housing Outcomes. Appl. Spatial Analysis (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-024-09573-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-024-09573-y