Housing career disparities in urban China: A comparison between skilled migrants and locals in Nanjing

The last two decades have witnessed a substantial growth of the owner-occupied housing sector in urban China, where most people tend to follow a conventional life course in terms of ascending the housing ladder towards homeownership. Yet, with skyrocketing housing prices in the real estate market, fragmentation in housing opportunities has become more important in reshaping the structure of social inequalities. This paper investigates the disparities in housing careers between skilled migrants and their local counterparts in Nanjing, focusing on temporal and spatial aspects. Specifically, this paper examines how skilled migrants’ housing tenure and location change over time, to what extent these changes differ from those of skilled locals, and what factors contribute to the disparities between migrants and locals. The results verify that there are indeed disparities in housing careers between migrants and locals, and the foremost difference lies in the tenure, especially the tenure of the first residence. Spatially, migrants exhibit an outward-bound pattern, often associated with the transition from renting to owning. These disparities in housing careers could be primarily attributed not only to the gap of the intergenerational transfer of wealth between migrants and locals, which can be traced back to regional disparities in economic development, but also to the self-selection of migration. While facing skyrocketing housing prices, the timing of making a foray into the housing market is pivotal. This study also revealed the diminishing marginal utility of education that is found in terms of establishing a superior housing career.