Housing and Welfare Regimes: Examining the Changing Role of Public Housing in China

Figures & data

Table 1. Differences between housing systems and the four welfare regimes.

Criteria of welfare state regimes/housing systems			Social democratic	Corporatist	Liberal	Productivist
Welfare regime criteria (General policy objectives)			Ensure the social condition of full employment	Preserve status differentials	Ensure a minimum well-being for the poorest residents	Ensure adequate social security for economically productive households
Housing system criteria (General housing policy objectives)			Guarantee universal high level of housing quality	Preserve social stratification	Market dominates housing provision	Confine housing welfare development to the realm of economic participation
				Stimulate households and private actors to take initiative on the housing market	State only supports marginal groups
Welfare regime criteria (Degree of de commodification)			Extensive	Quite extensive	Minimal	Flexible
Housing system criteria (Housing de-commodification)	Provision side	Provision scale	Large	Large	Small	Small or modest
		Subject subsidies	Large-scale	Segmented	Few and Means-tested	Limited public expenditure
						Sufficient policy support
		Price setting	Strong state influence	Moderate state influence	Minimum state influence	Modest state influence
						State regulates prices for correcting negative effects of market
					Market determines the housing price
				State regulates prices for correcting negative effects of t market
			Relatively low price
		Non-financial criteria	High and depends on housing demands	High and depends on social status	Low and depends on affordability	High and depends on occupational status
	Consumption	Object subsidies	High and universalistic	High and specific	Low	Modest and specific
Welfare regime criteria (Degree of stratification)			Relatively low	High	High	Modest
				Among different social statuses	Among different income groups	Among different occupations
Housing system criteria (Housing stratification)		Degree	Low	High	High	Modest
		Quality of housing welfare	Even among beneficiaries	Relatively high	Low	Depends on beneficiaries contribution to the economy
			High or flat-rate
		Allocation rules	Universal allocation based on housing demands	Set allocation rules for people of different classes and statuses	Regulated allocation for a small group who are unable to participate in the market	Allocation extended to residents with economic contributions
Welfare regime criteria (State-market-family relationship)			State dominate the welfare system, emancipating both market and families	NGOs and Churches displace market as the provider of benefits, protecting families	Market provide and differentiates	Economic interest groups dominate the provision of welfare
					welfare among the majorities
Housing system criteria (State-market-family/individuals relationship)		Main actors	The state	The state and families/individuals	Market and families/individuals	Market and families/individuals
		The role of state	The state takes a dominant position, provides various forms of de-commodified housing, and maximizes capacities for the individual independence	The state plays a regulative role in promoting the development of de-commodified housing to remedy market imperfection, and minimizes capacities for individual independence	The state exercises little regulation over for-profit housing markets, and maximizes capacities for individual independence	The state plays a regulative role in promoting the development of de-commodified housing, and maximizes capacities for individual independence

Table 2. Housing systems in Beijing and Chongqing.

			Beijing	Chongqing
General housing policy objectives			Stabilize socio-economic development while prioritizing the housing needs in new towns and industry parks	Create a people-oriented society and meet housing demands of all income groups
Housing de-commodification	Production	Provision scale	Modest for local residents	Modest for both local residents and migrants
			Limited for migrants
		Subject subsides	The state contributes a very small fiscal revenue
			The municipality input a few public expenditure
			The municipality grants a few preferential policies on land distribution and tax cuts	The municipality grants strong and many preferential policies on land distribution and tax cuts
		Price setting	Strong influence on price setting, based on market value	Very strong influence on price setting, based on market value
				e.g. PRH, 40% below market prices
			e.g. PRH, 10-20% below market prices
		Non-financial criteria	High for local residents
			Low for migrants	High for migrants
	Consumption	Object subsidies	Universalistic for local residents
			Occupational based for migrants
Housing stratification	Provision scale		Modest for local residents	Modest for all residents
			Small for migrants (≤1%)
	Quality of housing welfare		Modest quality
	Allocation rules		Universal allocation based on housing demands of local residents
			Highly regulated allocation based on the occupational status of migrants (1) Exclude retired migrant employees (2) Require a constant five-year participation in occupation; the pension plan, housing provident fund, as well as taxes payment within the same district (3) Accept application from employers (4) Open to households with income below ¥100,000	Very low regulated allocation for migrants (1) Include homeless people and retired migrant employees (2) Require a constant one-year participation in occupation (3) Accept application from individuals (4) Open to all income groups
State-market-family/individuals relationship	Main actors		State, market and individuals
	The role of government		The state plays a regulative role and supports the development of public housing through providing preferential policies
			Finance and construction work is decentralized from the municipality to the market sector, via district governments	Finance and construction work is decentralized to state-owned housing enterprises
				The municipality empowers state-owned housing enterprises to gain bank loans
			Various financial sources are gathered through the market mechanism

Source: Documents from webpages of Chongqing public rental housing information http://www.cqgzfglj.gov.cn/ and webpages of Beijing public housing http://www.bjjs.gov.cn/tabid/3565/Default.aspx.

Figure 1. Comparing occupations and education standards of migrants and the entire labour force in Beijing and Chongqing. Source: Tabulation on the Population Census of Beijing Municipality in 2010, China Statistics Press. Tabulation on the Population Census of Chongqing Municipality in 2010, China Statistics Press.