Housing Inequality in Urban China and the Change of Its Stratification Mechanism

Housing Inequality is an important embodiment of wealth Inequality. The distribution of housing resources in China has experienced the transformation from welfare allocation to market distribution, which has caused the change of housing stratification mechanism. This has led to theoretical debates on "market transition", "power persistence" and "power derivation". Based on a national survey of 2017, this paper examines housing inequality in China's urban areas, and probes the dynamics of housing stratification. The results show that, with the development of housing marketization, market mechanisms such as economic capital, human capital and class status have replaced the redistribution mechanism such as administrative power and public sector, and become the major dynamics of housing inequality. However, some institution factors originated from the planned economy period, such as Hukou system and city-administrative-hierarchy, have remained a strong effect on housing inequality. Persisting institution effect may provide a new perspective to explore housing inequality in the contemporary urban areas in China.