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"Housing reform"
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China’s Housing Reform and Labor Market Participation
The 1994–1998 housing reform in China allowed state employees to buy their rented public houses at considerably subsidized prices. By exploiting housing reform as an exogenous change in homeownership and employing a differences-in-differences framework, this paper examines the effect of housing reform on labor market participation. Using the data from China Health and Nutrition Survey, we find that individuals who are affected by the housing reform are 15.1 percentage points less likely to participate in labor market after controlling for observables. We further find that married women are 18.9 percentage points more likely to drop out of labor market after the housing reform, while their male counterparts are only 10.0 percentage points less likely to participate in labor market after the reform. We also explore mechanisms through which the housing reform may affect married women more greatly. Family division of labor hypothesis suggests that, in an efficient family husband should act as the “breadwinners” and wife be a caregiver and responsible for raising the family. We test this hypothesis and find strong evidence that married women in fact spend more time in family chores after the housing reform. Our findings are robust to alternative estimations and functional misspecifications.
Journal Article
New housing construction and market signals in urban China: a tale of 35 metropolitan areas
This paper investigates the equilibrium adjustment mechanism of new housing construction in urban China after the 1998 housing market reform. This analysis is based on a panel of 35 metropolitan areas over the period 2001–2015. The new housing supply function is specified in terms of changes rather than levels to capture the disequilibrium state of the Chinese housing market. In addition, current, one-year and two-year lags of the controls are used to capture the impact of the state control of construction land permits (Land Regulation Act). The main outcome is that new housing construction in the metropolitan areas under study responded to market signals but with relatively long time lags. In particular, during the period 2007–2015, new housing construction positively responded to the one-year and two-year lagged changes in housing prices and construction land supply, negatively responded to the current, one-year and two-year lagged changes in the interest rate, and negatively responded to the one-year lagged changes in construction material costs. The main conclusion is that China’s housing marketization has started to work, although it is still subject to its historical footprints and typical Chinese characteristics, notably state control of the construction land supply.
Journal Article
Explaining Housing Policy Change through Discursive Institutionalism
Explaining how and why housing policies change is an ongoing theoretical challenge for housing scholars. A key approach is the ‘housing regimes’ framework (Kemeny 2006), drawing from Esping-Andersen’s work on the role of labour/capital struggles in shaping welfare states. However, this framework has been criticised (Stephens 2020; Clapham 2020) for inadequately explaining housing system changes, including neoliberal shifts and financialization. In response, scholars have turned to political science and sociology theories on policy change, such as historical institutionalism (Ruonavaara 2020) and discursive theories focusing on interactions between policy actors (Clapham 2018). This article builds on Clapham’s discursive turn in housing studies by incorporating concepts from ‘discursive institutionalism’ (DI) (Schmidt 2008). DI explains policy change by examining the interplay of ideas, interactions, and power dynamics in a given policy field. DI provides a methodological framework for understanding how policy actors develop and use ideas to shape policies, while considering the influence of the institutional context and power relations. The aim of the article is to highlight the utility of DI as a framework for examining housing policy change. As a vehicle for doing so, an analysis of social housing policy change in New Zealand employing DI is provided for empirical reference. The article builds on Clapham’s (2018) focus on discourse in housing studies, adding DI to the repertoire of conceptual frameworks available to researchers interested in the causal role of ideas and discourse in policy change processes.
Journal Article
The Spatial Configuration of Segregation, Elite Fears of Disease, and Housing Reform in Washington, D.C.’s Inhabited Alleys
In the early 1900s, Washington, D.C. contained many alleys in the interior of blocks inhabited by impoverished Black residents. Elite reformers engaged in an aggressive campaign to eliminate alleys, on the grounds of their purported unsanitary environment and high disease prevalence. In this paper, I combine quantitative, qualitative, and spatial sources to explore new perspectives on segregation, public health, and the racialized efforts of housing reformers during this period. I find that reformers overstated the horrors of conditions in alleys and their effects on residents’ health: poorer health among alley residents was in large part due to Black residents’ marginalization wherever they might live. Alleys’ status as racialized space, coupled with progressive paternalistic racism, facilitated the discursive construction of alleys as pathological “breeding grounds of disease.” Further, my findings shed new light on micro-configurations of segregation within racially mixed neighborhoods, as well as the social experience and meaning of such configurations. Far from indicating harmonious coexistence, the proximity of such alleys to white homes and institutions spurred elite Washingtonians’ self-interested fear of disease spreading beyond the alleys. Thus, this pattern of segregation helps explain the zeal of the campaign to eradicate alleys: as a means of achieving separation from undesired Black neighbors whom white reformers associated with contagion.
Journal Article
Aging in Place in Jordan: Assessing Home Modifications, Accessibility Barriers, and Cultural Constraints
Jordan’s aging population faces a critical challenge: a strong cultural preference for aging at home, rooted in Islamic ethics of familial care (birr al-wālidayn), conflicts with housing stock that is largely unsafe and inaccessible. This first national mixed-methods study examines the intersection of home modifications, socio-economic barriers, and cultural constraints to aging in place. Data from 587 surveys and 35 interviews across seven governorates were analyzed using chi-square tests, linear regression, and thematic coding. Results indicate that while physical modifications significantly improve accessibility to key spaces like kitchens and reception areas (majlis) (χ2 = 341.86, p < 0.001), their adoption is severely limited. Socio-economic barriers are paramount, with 34% of households unable to afford the median modification cost of over $1500. Cultural resistance is equally critical; 22% of widows avoid modifications like grab bars to prevent the ‘medicalization’ of their home, prioritizing aesthetic and symbolic integrity over safety. The study reveals a significant gendered decision-making dynamic, with men controlling 72% of structural modifications (β = 0.27, p < 0.001). We conclude that effective policy must integrate universal design with Islamic care ethics. We propose three actionable recommendations: (1) mandating universal design in building codes (aligned with SDG 11), (2) establishing means-tested subsidy programs (aligned with SDG 10), and (3) launching public awareness campaigns co-led by faith leaders to reframe modifications as preserving dignity (karama) (aligned with SDG 3). This approach provides a model for other rapidly aging Middle Eastern societies facing similar cultural-infrastructural tensions.
Journal Article
Market-Based Housing Reforms and the Residualization of Public Housing: The Experience of Lodz, Poland
Housing inequality is one of the central topics in urban studies, and in the social sciences more broadly. It is also one of the most significant and visible aspects of socioeconomic inequality. Over the last three decades, the process of housing commodification has accelerated across western societies and, consequently, the public housing sector has contracted and become more closely associated with the poorest sections of societies in many cities. Over the same period, the political changes in Central and Eastern Europe have contributed to the dismantling and monetizing of state housing sectors at the forefront of broader social and economic transformations. Unfortunately, most recent studies on housing commodification and inequalities in Europe are confined to the national scale. The aim of this article is to detail the linkages between the position and functioning of public housing in Lodz (Poland) and the evolving socioeconomic profile of individuals and households that rely on public housing. This study relies on microdata (statistical information on individuals and households) from two national Polish censuses (1978 and 2002) and from household budget surveys (2003–2013). The main finding of our study is that ‘residualization’ is present in the public housing stock in Lodz and that the process gained momentum in the first decade of the 2000s.
Journal Article
'Project heat' and sensory politics in redeveloping Chicago public housing
This article examines Chicago's ongoing public housing reforms and more broadly, welfare reform, as a kind of sensory politics. I analyze experiences of home heating at a redeveloping public housing project to establish how neoliberal demands for self-responsibility have become tied to demands that transitioning residents reconfigure their subjective senses of comfort. These twin demands have distributed the risks of transitioning out of public housing across an individual's understanding of personal security as well as her obligations to kin. I show how approaching welfare reform as a sensory politics illuminates the emerging conditions of political recognition available to Chicago public housing residents as their longstanding representational bodies face obsolescence. Moreover, I argue that this approach invites us to reconsider theories of contestation and survival within urban poor people's social movements.
Journal Article
Chinese Housing Reform and Social Sustainability: Evidence from Post-Reform Home Ownership
Since 1978, China has undergone an institutional reform, from a welfare-oriented housing allocation system to a market-oriented one. But with high housing prices, affordability is a major obstacle to home ownership for Chinese citizens. Now, the government has started to change the goal of housing policy from present economic benefits to sustainable housing, so future generations will have a decent place to live. Housing is an important indicator for social stratification, and home ownership, which is an important component of social sustainability in the Chinese context, is influenced by multiple factors that vary across countries. Although China has a long tradition of home ownership, there is a lack of comprehensive research on post-reform housing inequality. By undertaking a large-scale field study in the city of Xiamen, our research explored to what extent home ownership varies across socio-economic classes, and improves understanding of the reasons behind home ownership inequality. It was discovered that people have a variety of resources from which housing can be obtained, and that commercial housing served as the primary housing source, although, due to path dependence, public housing still comprises an important source of housing, as well as self-built houses. A structural equation model (SEM) was used to further explore the driving forces of home ownership inequality. The model indicated that hukou (household registration) status has the strongest effect on home ownership, followed by education, with family income and occupation as less important factors. Along with income and education, home ownership has a direct effect on people’s perception of their own socio-economic status (SES). A probability model of home ownership was developed, based on logistic regression. Local families with higher levels of income and education with at least one member working in a publicly owned organization had a higher probability of home ownership. Lastly, since 1999, housing reform in Xiamen has tended to increase social stratification, with negative economic and social consequences. Therefore, policies should pay more attention to the welfare of renters and integrating the migration process into urban planning.
Journal Article