Property in whose name? Intrahousehold bargaining over homeownership in China

Abstract

Abstract Previous research typically examined homeownership inequality across individuals or households, overlooking the intrahousehold allocation of homeownership. Using couple-level data of the 2016 China Family Panel Studies, our study addresses the gap by examining the bargaining over homeownership between husbands and wives in China. Descriptive results reveal a large gender gap in homeownership: only about one-quarter of couples listed the wife as an owner on the Housing Ownership Certificate, whereas about 92% listed the husband. The gender gap in ownership, however, has narrowed among couples married after 2000. Multivariate analyses show that economic autonomy, relative resources, housing purchase conditions, and modernization significantly increase wives’ homeownership, but with varying degrees among rural and urban wives. Women’s own socioeconomic status is more important for acquiring homeownership for urban wives, yet rural wives’ homeownership depends more on the resource exchange with their husbands. Given the stratifying effects of homeownership, our findings of the unequal distribution of homeownership between husbands and wives underscore how family dynamics reproduce gender inequality.