The changing social structure of housing tenures through China’s successive urban housing reforms

Housing system transitions often involve successive but overlapping periods of reform with crucial implications for housing inequality dynamics. Building on welfare regime and market transition discussions, this paper considers how the shifting roles of the state, market, and family in housing provision in China have led to changing housing tenures and differentiated access to them between populations with varying socio-economic resources. Drawing on two national datasets, our analyses reveal that the four decades of reforms dramatically upended urban China’s tenure structure with market homeownership becoming the dominant tenure. Nevertheless, we find a substantial and increasing role of the family in housing provision, especially for people with fewer socio-economic resources. The advantages associated with better institutional resources under the previous socialist housing system not only persist in accessing state-provided tenures but have also extended their influence into market housing. Meanwhile, homeownership outcomes have become increasingly polarized among groups with different income and education levels. Our findings expose the reproduction and apparent amplification of tenure-related housing inequalities over the period of housing regime transformation.