Homeownership of the young middle class: the case of elite university graduates

• Autor(a) principal: Di, Zhu
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Civitas - Revista de Ciências Sociais (Porto Alegre. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/index.php/civitas/article/view/23065
• topic: Youth. Homeownership. Intellectual elite. The only child. Social stratification; Inequalities in China; Juventude. Casa própria. Elite intelectual. Filhos únicos. Estratificação social.

This paper uses the survey data of graduates from six ‘985 Project’ Universities1 in 2010, and for the first time systematically elaborates homeownership of young middle class, i.e. those born in the 1980s generation, and its influence factors. The research shows that: the overall homeownership rate of the ‘985 Project’ Universities graduates is higher than the average rate of the urban youth in China; the graduates who own a house tend to have better-off parental backgrounds and have better quality of life, which reveals social division; parents’ financial help, their marriage status and age are the most important factors influencing homeownership. The results emphasize the increasingly important social stratification function of housing. The government needs to increase the macroeconomic control on real estate and to enhance the housing welfare policies, so as to prevent further social segregation.