A Study of Social Integration of Urban Household Migrants from the

Perspective of Social Exclusion: An Empirical Analysis based on

Housing Inequality

Xiaoning Zhu

, Jun Liu

and Tingting Li

School of Public Administration, University of Electronic Science and Technology, Chengdu, China

Keywords: Social Exclusion, Urban Household Migration, Social Inclusion, Housing Inequality.

Abstract: With the prelude of the "people war" in major cities, various settlement policies have attracted numerous

talents with higher education to settle in cities and become the population with the city's household

registration, which we can call household migrants. At present, most of the studies on migrants in China focus

on the mobile population, and less on this part of people who are screened and left behind by the city as elites.

Housing has a certain significance for immigrants, and can be said to be one of the more important issues in

the process of urban integration, housing not only solves the major problem of living, more importantly, it

contains the sentiment of home. Therefore, owning a set of their own house has become the goal of many

immigrants to fight for, and household immigrants, as a member of the immigrant army, are no exception.

Household immigrants, as elites screened out by the city, have an advantage in the labor market and an

advantage in income, does this mean that they will have a smoother integration process in the city? An analysis

of microdata from the General Social Survey verifies that even for household migrants, they may not have an

advantage in acquiring housing because urban housing prices have continued to rise over the years and it is

increasingly difficult for urban latecomers to obtain housing, coupled with the intergenerational inheritance

nature of housing. In other words, for household migrants, there is a situation of housing exclusion in the

process of urban integration.

1 INTRODUCTION

Housing is a mirror of social change, and changes in

housing consumption patterns reflect trends in

individual occupational and family instability and

mobility in the transition from industrial to post-

industrial societies. In China, housing inequality has

also been widely discussed. Micro-level structural

factors such as education and family background, job

changes (Li, 2006), and social status, as well as unit

systems, housing system changes, housing finance

systems, and intergenerational differences, all

influence housing access and housing inequality

among urban residents. Housing is also the best lens

through which to view China's social transformation.

In the academic debate on "market transformation",

researchers have used different data to test the logic

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of housing access and inequality in the transition

process, developing, revising, and refuting theories of

market transformation. In summary, housing

disparities are often seen as a result of occupational

and household wealth differences.

In terms of research related to urban migration,

the current academic focus is on mobile populations,

such as those who migrate to cities for work, or those

without local household registration. The floating

population is "all the people who flow into the place

without official change of household registration, as

opposed to those who have officially changed their

household registration and achieved official

migration". If urban migrants, migrant populations,

and workers in the city (including those who have the

will to stay in the city for long-term work and

residence) are understood as immigrants in the city,

Zhu, X., Liu, J. and Li, T.

A Study of Social Integration of Urban Household Migrants from the Perspective of Social Exclusion: An Empirical Analysis based on Housing Inequality.

DOI: 10.5220/0011151400003437

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis (PMBDA 2021), pages 38-43

ISBN: 978-989-758-589-0

the social exclusion of them by urban housing is

significant, and most studies have focused on their

housing dilemmas in the city and the role of housing

as a barrier to their integration into urban society.

Moreover, the exclusion they experience is not

scattered and individual, but to a considerable extent

a "holistic, institutional exclusion". For these so-

called "immigrants," the obstacles to urban

integration can be attributed to their low economic

power. Their dilemma in the real estate market is

rooted in their socioeconomic status (including

income and occupation), i.e., they tend to be at the

bottom of the urban economy and labor market (Fan,

2002). That is, the housing exclusion they experience

in the urban integration process is actually a

consequence of the exclusion they experience in the

labor market.

Unlike previous studies that have focused on

migrant populations and workers moving to cities,

this study aims to examine the housing exclusion

suffered by residents who have non-agricultural

household registration in their cities and have lived in

that city for a long time, which can be referred to as

household migrants, and the social impacts they

suffer from housing exclusion in the process of urban

integration. Specifically, first, do household migrants

exhibit a group disadvantage in accessing housing

resources in a given city? Second, does group

disadvantage in access to housing resources in a

given city become a barrier for household migrants in

integrating into a given social life situation? Third, if

either of these scenarios exists, then access to housing

will become the basis for broader social exclusion,

i.e., an important barrier to the social integration and

social mobility of household migrants.

In recent years, the continuous increase in housing

prices has had a significant impact on migrants'

access to urban housing, and the difficulty in

accessing housing has to some extent become a major

obstacle to migrants' integration into cities, forming a

kind of social exclusion that affects their entry and

integration into urban life, discourages people from

moving upward, and ultimately affects social

mobility. When urban housing and its access become

the basis of a new mechanism of social exclusion,

policy interventions targeting housing become

important in order to promote social mobility and

integration.

Based on the above discussion, this study takes

the housing access of urban household migrants as an

example to analyze whether urban household

migrants encounter social exclusion in the process of

housing resource access, and on this basis, discusses

the social impact of such exclusion.

2 HOUSEHOLD MIGRATION

AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

THEORY

2.1 Household Migration

Household migrants are those who have lived in a city

for a long time, but are not "born and raised" in that

city, and have a non-agricultural household

registration in the city where they live. They have

more advantages than urban migrants, such as the

floating population.

2.2 Social Exclusion Theory

Social exclusion originated from Weber's discussion

of social closure, which, in Weber's view, refers to the

barrier effect of a particular community on people

outside the community who try to enter the

community (Weber, 1978), and this barrier effect was

later expressed by sociologists as the concept of

social exclusion. Social exclusion has also been

widely used in migration studies or ethnic integration

studies to interpret social integration.

Usually, social exclusion manifests itself through

certain mechanisms, which can be artificially set up

or pre-existing and spontaneously formed, in order to

limit the access of some individual members or

certain groups to certain resources, to prevent them

from entering a certain class or from integrating into

a certain social life environment. In other words,

social exclusion has two different dimensions, either

in terms of access to a certain resource or in terms of

access to a certain class status or identity. At the same

time, these two levels are closely related, as access to

resources helps people to enter a particular class or

acquire a certain status, and if access to resources is

blocked, often the access to a particular class or status

is also blocked. Thus, in a broader sense, social

exclusion actually refers to factors or mechanisms

that impede social mobility.

When the object of social exclusion has a group

or distinctive category characteristic, this exclusion is

what Parkin calls collective social exclusion (Parkin,

1974). The concept of collective social exclusion

implies the existence of a force that transcends

individual exclusion, and when exclusion is not

directed at individuals, it naturally enters the scope of

social science research and becomes a topic of focus

for social science. Immigrants have certain

commonalities, so they are prone to encounter the

same type of problems in the process of urban

integration, showing certain collective

A Study of Social Integration of Urban Household Migrants from the Perspective of Social Exclusion: An Empirical Analysis based on

Housing Inequality

characteristics. In recent years, housing prices in

domestic cities have been rising, especially in large

cities and mega-cities, which increases the cost of

urban integration for immigrants, and the later they

enter the cities, the more expensive and difficult they

have to pay for housing. The process of accessing

housing resources is socially excluded, and this

exclusion is not individual, but is characterized by the

collective social exclusion proposed by Parkin.

Social exclusion attracted widespread academic

attention in Europe in the 1960s, but it was not until

the 1980s that European societies generally

responded to social exclusion as a social fact at the

policy level (Silver, 1994). After the 1990s, empirical

research on social exclusion and anti-social exclusion

social policy practices generally emerged in Europe,

and in order to defuse social exclusion and promote

social integration, European countries adopted a

series of control measures. During this period, the

role of housing in social exclusion has received

widespread attention, and housing is often seen as an

important factor contributing to social exclusion

(Munch, 2012). It is commonly believed that housing

may have a social exclusionary effect on two levels.

On the one hand, it affects people's access to housing

resources, and on the other hand, it causes problems

in achieving status or social mobility due to

unsuccessful access to housing resources, blocking

access to a certain class, acquiring a certain status, or

blocking the path to integrate into a certain social life

scenario, and encountering obstacles to social

mobility.

In contrast, although the concept of social

exclusion does not appear in the official documents

of China, China did eliminate some institutional

mechanisms that could generate social exclusion

during the process of reform and opening up, by

actively developing the market economy, reforming

the household registration system and the unit

system, breaking down the previous institutional

barriers, promoting social mobility and social

integration. In addition, China is aware of the social

exclusion of housing and has introduced subsidized

housing in an attempt to eliminate some of the

negative effects caused by housing exclusion.

However, because of the small range of people to

whom subsidized housing is applicable, and therefore

the radiation is small, the improvement effect is not

obvious compared to the many immigrants, and

housing still has a social exclusion effect on a larger

scale.

3 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

European social exclusion theories and policy

intervention practices show that social exclusion

mainly involves the following aspects the following

aspects: economic exclusion, political exclusion,

public service exclusion, and social relationship

exclusion (Anderson and Duncan, 2000). The

traditional research view is that housing exclusion is

a result of labor market inequality, i.e., income

inequality, and is a form of economic exclusion.

Unlike previous studies, this paper argues that

housing exclusion has formed a new kind of social

exclusion, which has become a major obstacle for

household migrants in the process of urban

integration.

This argument is presented first of all based on a

factual empirical judgment that for the household

migrants. Their ability to successfully settle is

precisely the result of the city's screening through

various conditions of what we call elites. To be able

to migrate successfully, they are at least equipped

with advantages in human capital, and therefore, have

a better advantage in the labor market, their economic

income is not low and they are not economically

excluded. However, due to the continuous increase in

housing prices in recent years, even though they have

settled in the city and have a good wage income, they

still have difficulty to afford to buy a house. In

contrast, urban natives can purchase a house before

the price rises, or inherit the family home. As a result,

even for household migrants with higher social status

and more economic income, they are at a

disadvantage in terms of access to housing resources

compared to urban residents, and "cannot afford to

buy a house even if they have money", and the

continuously rising housing prices in cities

(especially big cities) make housing exclusion a new

social exclusion independent of economic exclusion.

Housing exclusion has become a new kind of social

exclusion independent of economic exclusion, which

affects the process of urban integration of household

migrants and becomes a major obstacle to their social

integration.

Based on the above discussion, this paper

proposes the following hypothesis: relative to the

original urban residents, urban household migrants

have an advantage in economic income but not in

access to housing resources, and there exists a kind of

housing exclusion independent of economic

exclusion, which in turn affects the process of their

social integration.

PMBDA 2021 - International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis

4 DATA SOURCES AND

EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

4.1 Data Source

The study argues the above questions with the help of

official statistics and data from several sample

surveys, including official data on housing prices in

various cities, housing statistics in 70 large and

medium-sized cities, the data from the 2017 China

Household Income Survey, the 2015-2017 China

Household Dynamics Survey, and the 2017 China

General Social Survey.

4.2 Quantitative Analysis

People's housing status is usually measured by two

variables: homeownership and housing size.

Homeownership is converted into three types based

on the original measurement: ownership housing,

ownership housing owned by immediate family

members, and rental or other types of housing.

Housing size is measured as the floor area of the

house in which the respondent lives.

From the available data, the probability that a

household migrant lives in an owned home versus a

home owned by an immediate family member is only

44.3% of that of a native urban resident, as shown in

“Tab. 1”. The probability that a household migrant

lives in a home owned by an immediate family

member versus a rented home is only 41.1% of that

of a native urban resident, as shown in “Tab. 1”. Thus,

it can be seen that urban residents have an advantage

over household migrants in terms of housing

ownership. In terms of the probability of living in

rented or other housing, household migrants are 2.1

times more likely to live in rented or other housing

relative to living in owned housing or housing owned

by immediate family members than urban natives, as

more likely to live in rented or other housing relative

to urban natives. The conclusion is clear that urban

natives have more advantages in terms of housing

ownership than household migrants.

Similarly, urban migrants are at a similar

disadvantage in terms of housing area, with

household migrants having an average of 6.21 square

Table 1: Housing ownership.

Model 1 Model 2

ln(p

) ln(p

) ln[p

/(1-p

)]

Fixed Effect

Coefficient(Standar

d Errors)

Coefficient(Standar

d Errors)

Coefficient(Standar

d Errors)

Intercept Distance -2.76(0.35)

***

0.09(0.37) 0.61(0.25)

Gender(Male=0) 0.24(0.06)

***

0.09(0.06) -0.15(0.04)

***

Age 0.04(0.00)

***

0.01(0.01)

-0.03(0.00)

***

On-the-job(No=0) 0.05(0.07) -0.52(0.08)

***

0.17(0.05)

***

Work Experience In State-

owned Units(None=0)

0.14(0.09) 0.01(0.10) -0.07(0.06)

Personal Annual

Income(Million)

0.03(0.01)

-0.04(0.02)

-0.01(0.01)

Years Of Education 0.08(0.01)

***

0.06(0.01)

***

-0.06(0.01)

***

Household Immigration -0.83(0.10)

***

-0.90(0.11)

***

0.66(0.08)

***

Original City Residents -0.66(0.11)

***

-0.54(0.12)

***

0.52(0.08)

***

Random Effects

Variance

Componen-ts

Variance

Componen-ts

Variance

Componen-ts

Intercept Distance 0.86

***

0.63

***

0.79

***

Household Immigration 0.46

0.52

0.43

Original City Residents 0.62

0.42 0.52

Log-likelihood Value -21651.18 -14524.21

Layer 1 Observations 11244 11244

Layer 2 Observations 124 124

A Study of Social Integration of Urban Household Migrants from the Perspective of Social Exclusion: An Empirical Analysis based on

Housing Inequality

meters less than urban natives in terms of household

housing area, as shown in “Tab. 2”.

In terms of income, it is inferred from the

empirical level that household migrants are the result

of screening by urban elites, who have certain

socioeconomic status advantages, or at least human

capital advantages, and thus, the income of household

migrants is not disadvantageous relative to that of

urban natives, and to some extent, has a considerable

advantage, as shown in “Tab. 3”.

Summing up the results of the analysis of the

above data, it can be said that the exclusion suffered

by household migrants in housing is verified to some

extent. Previous studies usually consider social

exclusion based on housing as a kind of economic

exclusion, which is rooted in the result of economic

income gap caused by inequality in the labor market,

and this conclusion still applies to mobile and urban

migrant workers, but household migrants have more

advantages compared to them, presenting different

characteristics from previous studies. For the

household migrants, they are not at a disadvantage in

Table 2: Housing size.

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Fixed Effect

Coefficient(Standard

Errors)

Coefficient(Standard

Errors)

Coefficient(Standard

Errors)

Intercept Distance 97.04(3.18)

***

48.02(6.34)

***

37.92(7.6)

***

Own

32.63(2.32)

***

Owned By Immediate Family

36.15(3.57)

***

Control Variables

Controlled Controlled

Household Immigration

-5.89(1.89)

-2.40(1.50)

Original City Residents

4.26(3.16) 6.63(3.32)

Random Effects Variance Componen-ts Variance Componen-ts Variance Componen-ts

Intercept Distance 1177.13

***

1366.40

***

471.57

***

Own

321.82

***

Owned By Immediate Family

1103.81

***

Household Immigration

78.89 58.27

Original City Residents

485.41

***

501.95

***

Layer 1 Randomized items 4987.7 4751.88 4491.31

Log-likelihood Value -63397.45 -63148.21 -62881.67

Layer 1 Observations 11137 11137 11137

Layer 2 Observations 124 124 124

Table 3: Income differences.

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Fixed Effect

Coefficient(Standard

Errors)

Coefficient(Standard

Errors)

Coefficient(Standard

Errors)

Intercept Distance 9.07

***

4.24(0.38)

***

4.25(0.38)

***

Household Immigration

0.21(0.06)

***

0.23(0.05)

***

Original City Residents

-0.35(0.1)

***

-0.29(0.1)

Random Effects Variance Componen-ts Variance Componen-ts Variance Componen-ts

Intercept Distance 1.00

***

0.58

***

0.53

***

Household Immigration

0.02

Original City Residents

0.45

***

Layer 1 Randomized items 7.96 5.88 5.82

Log-likelihood Value -27765.25 -26070.64 -26054.15

Layer 1 Observations 11244 11244 11244

Layer 2 Observations 124 124 124

PMBDA 2021 - International Conference on Public Management and Big Data Analysis

the labor market, and to some extent have

considerable advantages, with significant income,

and thus, they are not suffering from economic

exclusion.

5 CONCLUSION AND

DISCUSSION

Chinese people have a special affection for home.

Therefore, housing can be considered the top priority

for families. If there is no sense of belonging, how

can we talk about integration?

Currently, housing has become a hot topic of

general concern. Along with the continuous increase

in housing prices in recent years, housing has become

a major problem for urban migrants, and the

unaffordability of housing has become a common

status quo. Previous studies have often considered the

difficulty in accessing housing resources as a result of

labor market inequality. But from empirical

extrapolation and data validation, urban household

migrants, as a result of elite screening, are not at a

disadvantage in the labor market. However, they are

still at a disadvantage in accessing housing resources.

Thus, this paper examines the possible social

exclusionary effects of housing, using access to

housing resources as an example, and argues that it

adversely affects the social integration of urban

household migrants.

Previous studies have argued that whether people

are disadvantaged in accessing housing resources

usually boils down to being influenced by the

magnitude of their ability to pay, which is mainly

related to people's position in the labor market. Thus,

disadvantage in accessing housing resources can be

attributed to disadvantage in the labor market and is

a form of economic exclusion. However, the urban

household migrants in this study exhibit

characteristics that are different from previous

studies. From the empirical analysis as well as the

results of data validation, household migrants do not

suffer from economic exclusion, but instead show

considerable income advantages, which is consistent

with the logic of urban elite screening. That is,

household migrants are not disadvantaged in the labor

market, are not excluded, and even outperform urban

natives, but they show a significant disadvantage in

access to housing resources due to the continuous

increase in housing prices in recent years. And the

later they enter the city, the more difficult it is to

access housing. This finding verifies the hypothesis

proposed in the previous paper that, relative to urban

natives, urban household migrants have an advantage

in economic income but not in access to housing

resources, and that housing exclusion has become an

independent social exclusion, which in turn affects

their social integration process.

Housing exclusion has emerged as a separate

form of social exclusion, which is not unrelated to the

continuous increase in housing prices in recent years.

As housing prices continue to rise, compared to the

original residents, household migrants do not have

previous housing accumulation when they move to

the city, such as inheriting a home or purchasing a

home when prices are cheaper, thus making it more

difficult to access housing resources. In contrast,

urban residents can purchase housing when prices are

cheaper, or even inherit the family home, so housing

exclusion is actually a "time-accumulative"

exclusion.

From the existing studies, housing exclusion has

become a new kind of social exclusion, therefore, in

the future, we should focus on housing in a broader

sense, rethink the role of housing in people's

livelihood, and strengthen policy interventions

targeting housing.

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Anderson, Isobel＆Duncan Sim 2000, “Social Exclusion

and Housing: Context and Challenges. ” Australian

Housing＆Urban Research Institute 51.

Fan, C. Cindy 2002, “The Elite,the Natives, and the

Outsiders: Migration and Labor Market Segmentation

in Urban China.” Annals of the Association of

American Geographers 92(1).

Li, Limei 2006, “Life Course and Housing Tenure Change

in Urban China: A Study of Guangzhou.” Housing

Studies 21(5).

Munch, S. 2012, “Social Exclusion and Housing”

International Encyclopedia of Housing＆Home 51.

Parkin，Frank 1974, “Strategies of Social Closure in Class

Formation.” In Parkin Frank (ed.), The Social Analysis

of Class Structure． London: Tavistock Publications.

Silver, Hilary 1994, “Social Exclusion and Social

Solidarity: Three Paradigms.”International Labour

Review 133(5).

Weber, Max 1978, Economy and Society: An Outline of

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A Study of Social Integration of Urban Household Migrants from the Perspective of Social Exclusion: An Empirical Analysis based on

Housing Inequality