Study On The Housing Affordability Of Urban Residents From The View Of Equity Theory

Along with deepening of the urban housing system reform since 1998, the market mechanism, which introduced in the field of housing in an all-round way, has played the vital role in the housing resources distribution. However, since 2003, the series issues, like the widening gap between total of housing supply and demand, the unbalanced housing structure, the fast escalation of housing prices, and the defect of housing security, have triggered the problem of housing affordability of middle-and-low income households. In order to improve the housing affordability of urban households and promote the housing fairness, the paper discusses the scientific measuring of housing affordability, generalizes the characteristics of divergence, explains the mechanism, and judges the fairness.Firstly, in accordance with the equity theory, the meaning of housing affordability is analyzed, and the measuring method is constructed and studied empirically based on the economic and consumer behavior theory. Secondly, the different characteristics of housing affordability are generalized, the mechanism of divergence is also explained. Thirdly, the relationship between the housing affordability and WTP, the satisfaction of housing allocation has been studied from the psychological dimension.The main conclusions of this paper are generalized as follows:(1)The problem of housing fairness in fact is the issue of housing affordability. Studying the housing affordability, we should grasp the meaning comprehensively from the material and psychological level.(2)The new measurement of housing affordability, namely the ELES-MHAI model, which uses MHAI for calculating the housing affordability of households, has been established on the foundation of additive utility function and residual income theory. The empirical study finds that MHAI is more objective, more distinguishable than HAI.(3)The household income has had the very prominent influence on housing affordability of residents, simultaneously, the different family cycle, education, employment make the housing affordability express the diverse rules. In general, the housing affordability will improve with the growth of household income. To the higher income families, with the growth of family cycle, the capacity of housing affordability is increased at first, then dropped, that is, showing inverted "U" curve, while the lower income families are reverse. The housing affordability of households with higher level of education is much larger than the households with lower level of education. The potential of improving the housing affordability of households, whose members work in government office, institutions, state-owned enterprises or collective, private enterprises, is decreasing in turn, but, the households without fixed jobs has the higher odds than the private staff and retiree.(4)The difference of housing affordability is due to the various social capitals. The education could improve social capital. The empirical results show that residents with high level education, in general, have the higher housing affordability, while the lower level of housing affordability in the households with capital and return deficit.(5)The housing economy capacity is the foundation of psychological housing affordability of price. The households with MHAI of greater than one have strong housing affordability from physical and mental dimension. There are obvious differences between the current housing prices and the housing affordability from the economy and psychological aspects in the households with MHAI of less than one.(6)From the housing affordability in the objective level, there is obvious unfairness in the sample families. The households with smaller housing have the low level of housing affordability, while the housing affordability of households with bigger housing are in a relatively high level. From a subjective dimension, on the one hand, the gap between WTP and housing price has enlarged in the households with smaller size housing, on the contrary, the trend of the gap has narrowed; on the other hand, the households with strong housing affordability express the higher level of satisfaction and the equity.