An investigation of migrants’ residential satisfaction in Beijing

Chinese cities have witnessed enormous neighbourhood changes as a result of housing reforms, rapid urban expansion and massive rural-to-urban migration. Migrants, without local hukou status, are confronted with many constraints in accessing urban housing. While previous studies have focused on migrants’ poor housing conditions, relatively little is known about their self-selection into different neighbourhood types, as well as their subjective evaluation of living environment in local areas. Drawing upon a large-scale questionnaire survey in Beijing in 2013, we examine the factors influencing migrants’ residential choices, in particular urban villages versus other neighbourhood types, in a multinomial logit model and the sources of residential satisfaction in a multilevel framework. The results show that migrants sort themselves into different neighbourhoods contingent on demographic and socio-economic factors, and express different levels of satisfaction after controlling for individual attributes and geographical context. Moreover, their self-selection significantly influences residential satisfaction.