Research On Housing Problems Of Peasant Workers In Urban China

Urbanization deveploping simultaneously with industrialization and modernization is the universal law of the world economy. Due to the comprehensive and enduring exclusions of peasant workers resulting from the rural-urban dualistic social institution, China’s urbanization obviously lags behind its economic advancement. Urban residential is the material precondition for citizenization of rural migrants; still it constitutes a major impediment to the process of urbanization in China. In the context of achieving sustained economic growth and higher standards on both levels and effectiveness of urbanization set down by economic restructuring, improving and gradually resolving urban housing problems of peasant workers has a great practical significance.Housing problems of peasant workers in the city occurred and developed with the process of rural-to-urban migration which characterized by its vast scale, long distance and inter-regional mobility, with large or medium sized city as the main destination. Profoundly shaped by China’s unique macro social-economic environment and policy system, the process of rural labor transfer in this country shows different types of status and characteristics in different historical stages. Under the new circumstances of accelerating development of urbanization at present, housing problems of peasant workers has become a serious obstacle to the urbanization, industrialization and modernization of China. It affects the whole national economy and social transformation, and relates to the construction and implementation of the new type of rural and urban integration. Seeking methods of resolving housing problems of peasant workers in the city has become an important topic of the times.Social minimum housing standard, the important effect of internal differentiation (especially in the aspect of economy) on their housing-demand types in cities among peasant workers, and the difference in terms of housing affordability of peasant workers among different types of city are the three prerequisites of discussing their housing problems in the city. Social minimum housing conditions are a justicial norm involving the fundamental civil right to subsistence, dignity of labour, safety and health. Whether rich or poor, everyone deserves the right of obtaining suitable housing in modern society. Nobody should be excluded from basic living security in any form and any place. There are two different types of housing problems in peasant workers for the internal differentiation of their economic status. One is the permanent housing problem, which mainly for migrant families; the other is temporary housing problem, which mainly for the individual migrants. These two housing problems are of different nature, and should be treated differently and resolved by classification. Through studying the existing literature and related surveys, we find that housing affordability of peasant workers differs greatly from each other depending on the type of the city. Specifically, ratios of monthly rent to income for peasant workers in first and second tier cities both come close to the housing.burden warning line, i.e. they generally lack housing affordability. However, the ratios in third and fourth tier cities are basically at a reasonable level, i.e. they comparably have housing affordability. From the perspective of their housing affordability, the focus of citizenization of peasant workers should be diverting them from big cities to medium and small cities.Currently in China, the main characteristics of housing situation of peasant workers in the city can be summarized as follows:(1) Forms and ways of obtaining dwellings in cities for peasant workers are complicated. Their lodging locations present the features of marginalization and usually segregated from mainstream society of the city.(2) Per capita floor size is extremely small, and housing conditions and facilities are in a shocking state.(3) Peasant workers generally lack housing affordability. Several basic conclusions are drawn through investigation and research done in Wuhan City as a case. These include:(1) Renting housing is the most important form of obtaining dwellings for peasant workers in Wuhan, accounting for67.8percent of their housing types in total.(2) Urban villages are the main settlements of peasant workers in Wuhan, where about52.6percent of the population lives.(3) The mean per-capita floor size of peasant workers in Wuhan is merely9.2square meters (measured by construction space), less than a third of that of local urban residents.(4) Shared rooms of peasant workers are very crowded. The average persons co-living in one room comes to3for shared renters and7for shared dormitories.(5) Housing conditions of peasant workers are extremely poor. Facilities such as water and electricity supply, kitchen, bathroom, sewage and drainage are seriously incompatible with basic needs of their daily life. About39percent of peasant renters in Wuhan have no kitchen,5percent of peasant workers have no water and electricity supply,32.4percent have no single washroom, and34.9percent lack bathing facilities.(6) The mean rent of peasant workers per month in Wuhan is663.6yuan, and the average ratio of monthly rent to income of them is approximately20%. Above80percent of the peasant renters are bearing a heavy housing burden. Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation on housing situation of peasant workers in Wuhan shows that weights for "livable" and "comparably livable" are0.1598and0.2368, but weights for "unlivable" and "extremely unlivable" are0.3816and0.2209respectively, the sum of which exceeds0.6. The results of the qualitative evaluation further validate the proposal that housing situations of peasant workers are overall in a shocking state.A Structured Equation Modeling (SEM) and a logit model are established in sequence to identify the impact of housing situation of peasant workers on their residence decisions, based on the data from survey sampling conducted in Wuhan. Both the two estimates confirm the the hypothesis that housing situation plays a key role in citizenization of peasant workers. In the SEM model, urban housing situation of peasant workers has a significant positive effect on their citizenization propensity. The standardized coefficient is3.488, which is the biggest one among the all coefficients estimated. It demonstrates the crucial role of housing situation of peasant workers in the process of their citizenization. In the logit models, compared to the peasant workers who rate their urban housing situation as "dissatisfied", these who rate their housing situation as "satisfied" overall have much higher probabilities of citizenization. Specifically, the citizenization probabilities of the former are respectively79,63and27.5times higher than that of the latter in the three logit models. Similarly, those rating their housing situation as "general" have marginally higher probabilities than that of the ones rating "dissatisfied" and the corresponding times are10.9,8.9and7.1, respectively. These results illustrate the access to housing and housing situation of peasant workers play an important part in the development of their sense of identity and belonging to the cities they work in. They greatly influence the judgement of peasant workers on the practicality of their citizenization, and affect their decision on whether to stay in or leave the city. Therefore, improving housing conditions of peasant workers in the city is of great importance in promoting urbanization in China.Causes of housing problems of peasant workers in the city can be summarized into several aspects like supply-demand and institutional factors. In the aspect of demand and supply, lack of housing affordability and efficient demand is the direct cause of housing problems of peasant workers in terms of demand. In terms of supply, the absence of government in housing security as well as the imbalance of urban housing supply structure decreases the quantities of housing which are livable, convenient to obtain, and compatible with peasant workers’affordability. The lack of support of peasants’land property on buying houses of their own, the high monopolization of urban land supply by city governments,"land finance" which excessively pursues economic profits, and the over-marketilized reform in the field of housing system are all factors which singularize the forms and ways of obtaining dwellings in cities for peasant workers. These factors further weaken their capacity to pay and thus the institutional foundations for urbanization, making it more difficult for peasant workers to achive citizenization. The hukou system and the sharp rural-urban divide on social welfare benefits restrain peasant workers from enjoying urban housing security. Both of them block the way to acquire social resources necessary for their citizenization and deteriorate the conditions to do so. The hukou system and its derivatives-rural-urban welfare divide present the greatest institutional barrier for citizenization of peasant workers in China.Housing policies and practice of western developed countries in their process of industrialization show that, at the time when industrialization begins to speed up, the key point for resolving housing problems of urban migrants is to build large quantities of public housings by the governments. Under the condition of housing shortage, for the sake of peasant workers’affordability, it’s necessary for the government to intervene the rent market through appropriate means. Moreover, to develop housing financial market, establish and complete the dwelling house financial service system are all efficient ways to help the low-income group including peasant workers finance for their homes. Besides, cultivating and directing social unites like public enterprise and NGOs to participate in social housing delivery and operation are advisable. Finally, to develop "rural homestead and city estates exchange program" and "flat program" for peasant workers are also useful experience.To promote citizenization of peasant workers and to resolve their urban housing problems are a long-term and complex system project. In terms of macro aspect, they closely relate to the stage of economic development, the improvement of public service system for urbanization, the general qualities of peasant workers and their economic status. In terms of micro aspect, there’re at least three critical requirements of citizenization fulfilment for peasant workers as individuals:(1) They must have a stable profession in the city they settle down, and have a reliable and adequate income source to guarantee their living and sustainable development in the city.(2) They must be given the equal access to the comprehensive welfare benefits enjoyed by urban residents.(3) They must have their own houses in cities (either by renting or purchasing) which meet the minimum livable standard and the basic needs of living. Among the three requirements, housing access is the utmost and immediate concern to peasant workers who expect to turn into urban citizens.Basic approaches to resolve housing problems of peasant workers are as follows:(1) To construct and fund for public housings so as to increase the efficient housing supply for peasant workers, with the leading role of the governments.(2) To treat subgroups of peasant workers who have different willingness and capacity to citizenize differently, mainly by classification.(3) To draw up time-bound goals in terms of long, medium and short length for resolving the housing problems of peasant workers, and accomplish the task step by step.(4) To break down the barriers of the hukou syestem and the separation of urban and rural areas, establishing a unified new residential registered system.The main feasible measures of resolving urban housing problems of peasant workers include:(1) Implement "a gradient transfer strategy of citizenization of peasant workers" which focuses on directing peasant workers from overcrowded metropolis to small or medium sized cities.(2) Advocate renting as the major way of urban residence for peasant workers is a immediate policy choice.(3) Cultivate and direct the development of the downmarket line of urban housings with a great effort. Besides, to standardize the management of renting behaviors in the downmarket is also advisable.(4) Give peasant workers equal access to housing security benefits as the urban residents in time based on the country’s financial capacities.(5) Bring forth new ideas in urbanization institutions to further extend the support effect of peasants’ land property on buying houses of their own in cities.