Homeownership and happiness in urban China

Abstract

Our paper explores the relationship between home ownership and happiness for local residents and migrants in Chinese cities. Our analysis is guided by literature about home ownership, life satisfaction, international migration, and internal migration. The analysis is based on the 2015 China Household Finance Survey. We compared the level of happiness by home ownership status among local residents, rural migrants and urban migrants. We found that, among homeowners, both rural migrants and local residents are happier than urban migrants. Our results also indicate that rural migrants who own homes in urban areas are significantly happier than non-homeowners, but rural migrants who own homes in rural areas are not significantly happier than non-homeowners. In addition, the results reveal that the level of happiness is not related to whether or not they live in the homes that they own. Implications of the findings are discussed.