Housing Policies for Rural Migrant Workers in China

Lack of housing security is a major problem for rural migrant workers in China. This chapter explores the range and depth of housing problems facing rural migrants. These challenges include issues of affordability and poor housing quality and administrative barriers that inhibit access to commercial housing and housing welfare programmes. There is a big difference between the housing consumption pattern of migrant workers in the city and that in the countryside. This is due to large discrepancies in levels of access to good quality accommodation between migrants from rural areas and the established urban population. These inequalities are exacerbated by inherited forms of residential registration that adversely affect rural migrants settling in towns and cities. The situation is further exacerbated by land use regulations that restrict the construction of collective dormitories for rural migrant workers. The key is to promote the system reform of rural land and speed up the establishment of a free market homestead and rural housing. Policy responses over the past twenty years are evaluated, and recommendations for future policy development are proposed to improve housing conditions, including reform of land use regulations and improved property rights for migrants.