Residential mobility after Hukou reform: Housing strategies of rural-urban migrants in China

Abstract

This thesis explores rural-urban migrants’ residential mobility in China, particularly their housing strategies and related outcomes. One way for migrants to obtain formal residential registration status (hukou in Chinese) is to purchase an apartment in the city. Moving voluntarily through homeownership has been a strategy since the early 2000s, when municipalities implemented new hukou access policies. Meanwhile, migrants in temporary rentals have been forced to relocate by policies to demolish inner-city neighborhoods to make way for market-sector housing. To cushion the negative effects of such involuntary moves, migrants adopt diverse strategies. Based on two official surveys and our own survey in Jiangsu province, the analyses presented here demonstrate the range of strategies migrants use to realize their aspirations. These include settling at less-developed destinations, marrying a local homeowner, making a trade-off between dwelling attributes and geographic location, preserving contacts by mobile phone/Internet, and participating in neighborhood activities.The dynamics of this relocation process and its outcomes depend on various factors. The study finds that residential mobility is increasingly explained by individuals’ demographic characteristics and preferences, whereas the role of institutional constraints is declining. These results link China’s rural-urban migration patterns to classic explanations of residential mobility in market economies. The study concludes that rural-urban migration in China may be understood as not just an economic calculation but also as a life trajectory: migrants are searching for a way and a place to establish a new home. That motivation underlies their endeavors to overcome institutional constraints on their residential mobility.