Housing differentiation and housing poverty in Chinese low-income urban neighborhoods under the confluence of State-market forces

ABSTRACT

Based on a large-scale household survey conducted in six large Chinese cities, this study is among the first attempts to juxtapose factors related to institution, market, and demography to examine the complex patterns and mechanisms of housing differentiation and housing poverty in low-income neighborhoods, which are conventionally conceived as homogenous substandard settlements. Results of Theil indices and multivariate regression models convey several interesting findings. First, the forces of the market and the State have projected different impacts on various aspects of housing status. Institutional factors had significant impacts on some costly and durable housing indicators such as housing tenure and housing area, while market forces have swiftly transformed the most malleable aspects of housing conditions, such as housing facilities, and will eventually replace some institutional legacies. Second, within-group housing differentiation is more palpable than between-group housing differentiation, suggesting that low-income neighborhoods in large Chinese cities are fluid and heterogeneous. Third, different institutional elements have different impacts on housing poverty. The well-functioning market remuneration system helps reduce the risk of housing poverty, yet working poor remains a severe problem. These findings can inform policies promoting social mix and housing affordability.

KEYWORDS:

• State
• institution
• market
• housing differentiation
• housing poverty
• low-income neighborhood

Acknowledgement

We thank Prof. Deborah Martin and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on our work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The housing facility index is a composite of seven qualitative aspects of housing each given a binary value {1,0}: separate kitchen, private bathroom, private shower/bath, piped-in gas, color TV, refrigerator, and access to Internet. The final score of this index was standardized by dividing the aggregated value of these seven items with the maximum value (7), which means the final score ranges from 0 to 1.

2. Theil’s T statistic is calculated based on following formula: , where P is the total number of surveyed households, y_i is the housing indicator of household i, μ is the mean of y_i. T ranges between 0 and ln(p); a higher T statistic indicates higher degree of inequality or differentiation. This index can be easily decomposed into between-group inequality (T_bg) and within-group inequality (T_wg) using the following formulas:, , where P_j is the number of households in group j, μ_j is the mean of housing indicators for group j.

Additional information

Funding

The work described in this paper is partly sponsored by the National Science Foundation of China [grant number 41322003], [grant number 41271180], [grant number 41531178] and Natural Science Foundation Team Project of Guangdong [grant number 2014A030312010].