Drivers of housing choice among rural-to-urban migrants: evidence from Taiyuan

Abstract

Policies addressing the influx of rural migrants into Chinese urban areas have evolved over time from active opposition, through suspicious ambivalence, to wary tolerance, and now seem to have entered a new phase in which productive engagement is being attempted. Unfortunately, little information or experience is available to inform policy development in this new era. This paper helps address this knowledge gap by studying housing behaviour and choices among a sample of migrants in Taiyuan. The study's results suggest that migrants' housing outcomes in urban areas are influenced heavily by priorities linked to the transitional economic environment and individual migration characteristics. The analysis finds a more limited role for factors such as income and life cycle, which are central to housing choice in other contexts. We argue that migrants' housing outcomes cannot be explained without reference to the specific set of challenges they face, and the resulting decisions that they make, as a result of their immersion in the country's economic transition.

Keywords:

• Chinese cities
• migration
• housing policy

This study was funded by a grant from the Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines (STICERD) at LSE and builds directly upon earlier work funded by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Notes

1. Late in 2007 (well after the completion of our fieldwork), local authorities began requiring employers that hire a large number of migrant workers to build more permanent dormitories for their employees.

2. Central provinces include Shanxi, Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi.

3. See the appendix for detailed response information for the index components.

4. ‘Services’ combines wholesale/retail, restaurant and domestic services. ‘Street business’ combines recycling, street vending and others. Manufacturing and construction are unadjusted.