A Study Of Housing Consumption In Rural China From The Perspective Of Status Seeking

The housing consumption boom in China’s rural areas has not diminished in the process of urbanization,and the overall phenomenon of "fewer people and more land",the housing area of rural households often exceeds the actual area used,and the houses are vacant for years,resulting in an unsustainable supply of residential bases,increased pressure on arable land protection,and low utilization of rural land resources.Does the phenomenon of overheated housing consumption in rural areas originate from the fact that farmers use it to demonstrate their social status(i.e.,status seeking)? If so,what are the socioeconomic implications? In view of this,this study constructs an analytical framework for rural housing consumption from a status-seeking perspective,explores the theoretical mechanisms of rural housing consumption;adopts Ordered-Probit model,multi-period DID model,and generalized exact matching to study the impact of rural housing consumption on the social status of rural residents,analyzes the resource allocation problems caused by rural housing consumption under the status-seeking orientation,and proposes optimization of rural housing consumption-related policy recommendations.The main research findings are as follows:First,rural housing consumption enthusiasm still exists,and the consumption divergence between regions has slowed down.The proportion of rural housing consumption remains prominent in the recent past,accounting for more than 50% of rural household consumption inputs for a long time.Rural housing consumption has narrowed,with the western region experiencing a relatively larger increase in rural housing consumption in the past decade or so,and is the main source of growth in rural housing consumption nationwide.There is an obvious gap between the area and structure of rural housing in the eastern and western regions,and the gap in rural housing consumption has further widened with the reduction of analysis units,and the gap in housing area within the same village is even up to hundreds of times.A significant portion of rural households have poor housing conditions,some new housing is costly,and borrowing related to rural housing consumption is relatively common.Second,there are status-seeking motives for rural housing consumption,and the greater the urbanrural income gap,the weaker the status-seeking motives of rural households.The effect of rural housing consumption on the social status of rural residents shows signs of weakening after 2014,and the widening income gap is an important motivation for the weakening of status-seeking motives in rural housing consumption.The impact of rural housing consumption on the social status of rural residents is stronger in regions with a smaller urban-rural income gap,and the corresponding regions have more incremental rural housing consumption.Greater renewal of rural housing in 2018 is more conducive to enhancing the social status of higher income groups.Third,the presence of status-seeking motives for rural housing consumption crowds out household developmental consumption.Rural housing consumption leads to a 16.7% decline in household developmental consumption,and the initial competitive state exacerbates the crowding-out effect of rural housing consumption,with farmhouse construction leading to a 24% decline in household developmental consumption in areas with larger rural housing areas,while the crowding-out effect is about half of the former in areas with smaller rural housing areas.The crowding-out effect of rural housing consumption is long-term in nature,as farm household housing construction leads to a significant increase in bank loans and private borrowing,a significant decrease in savings,and a substantial sacrifice of long-term household development by farm households to manifest their social status in rural housing consumption.Fourth,the existence of status-seeking motives for rural housing consumption has limited actual residential function and low resource utilization.During the epidemic,idle rural housing increased significantly,with 4 and 4.8 villages per 100 villages having vacant and abandoned and perennially idle housing,respectively.Of these,the average increase in vacant and abandoned housing per village was 7.3cases,and the increase in perennial idle housing was 9.2 cases.At the regional level,rural housing overconsumption is relatively more prevalent and less functional for housing in the eastern and central regions,while no significant differences are found within counties.Based on the results of the empirical analysis,relevant policy recommendations for optimizing rural housing consumption are proposed: the government improves the management of rural housing forms as soon as possible,reasonably controls the number of floors and height of buildings,and objectively reduces the possibility of seeking social status with rural housing;promotes a utility-oriented view of rural housing consumption,focusing on high-income groups,and subjectively slows down the awareness of status seeking with rural housing;explores the use of direct repossession,The government has also explored the use of idle rural housing through direct repossession,increased holding costs,and moderately expanded the scope of transactions;explored various rural housing security measures through the reform of the residential base system,improved the housing conditions of rural residents,and promoted the docking of urban and rural housing security systems.