Determinants of Migrant Workers’ Housing Pathways: Evidence from China

Since the economic reform in 1978, China has undergone rapid economic development. From the late 1980s to early 1990s, the first tide of migrant workers appeared in China. An increasing number of migrant workers left their hometowns to seek jobs in another place. Housing is a common challenge for migrant workers in their working destinations. Housing choices of migrant workers have been widely investigated, albeit from the static perspective. Few studies have looked into the housing pathways of migrant workers, or their housing choices from a dynamic point of view. Housing pathway is the result of interactions between social practices of households and housing over time and space. This paper explores the housing pathways of migrant workers and its determinants from three aspects, i.e., housing tenure, housing size, and housing quality. Data from CFPS 2014 and CFPS 2016 are employed. Multiple logistic regression is used. The results show that socio-economic characteristics, mobility characteristics, and life course affects the housing pathways of migrant workers significantly. However, the effects of the above-mentioned factors on housing tenure, housing size, and housing quality of migrant workers are different. Compared with migrant workers in the Western region, migrant workers in the other two regions (i.e., the Eastern region, and the Central region) are less likely to obtain full homeownership, but more likely to improve housing quality during migration. Unemployed migrant workers or those who drop out of the labor market have higher possibilities of losing homeownership. They are also more likely to reduce the housing size. On the other hand, migrant workers who are getting married are prone to increase the housing size. The old generation and the migrant workers who have larger family sizes and longer durations of migration are more likely to have housing sizes unchanged. Moreover, the housing qualities of migrant workers who maintain the status of unemployment tend to remain unchanged. It is also true for migrant workers with larger family sizes. Based on the empirical results, the government is suggested to provide more employment information, job training, and job opportunities for migrant workers who are at disadvantages in housing. At the regional level, it is better for local governments to promulgate preferential housing policies for migrant workers in economically developed areas, such as widening the coverage of public housing, and encouraging employers to provide accommodations.