Did You Miss the Ride? Housing Boom and Household Wealth in China

Abstract

In the two decades following housing privatization, housing quickly dominated Chinese urban household wealth growth and inequality. We test hypotheses derived from a housing investment production function in China's unique context against multiyear microdata. During 2011–2019, housing wealth of different birth cohorts followed disparate paths, with clear spatial, socioeconomic and social identity-based polarization. The biggest winners in China's housing boom were the well-educated in superstar cities. 5%–10% of the young homeowners born since the late 1970s, especially those born since mid-1980s, seem most vulnerable in a housing bust or when facing a negative income shock.