Homeownership and subjective poverty in China

Abstract China's poverty alleviation efforts have gradually shifted from solving absolute poverty to relieving relative poverty. The objective economic poverty diverges from psychological subjective poverty and cannot fully capture the sense of relative poverty. Therefore, this study explores the role of homeownership in alleviating subjective poverty using 2018 China Family Panel Studies data. Our results indicate that homeowners in China have a significantly lower subjective sense of poverty, compared with those not owning homes. Furthermore, homeownership has a more significant impact on subjective poverty for “low,” “high,” and “very high” poverty categories, whereas multiple homeownership has a more substantial impact for “very low” and “high” groups. The study also concludes that factors including age, marriage, hukou status, health, education, family cash deposits, and per capita household income have a significant influence on subjective poverty. It is interesting to note that the effect of age on subjective poverty follows an “inverted U‐shaped” pattern. In addition, the effects of homeownership on subjective poverty differ significantly across regions and income groups. Thus, our findings suggest that it is essential to reduce inequality in home ownership and formulate policies that would strike a balance between tenants and homeowners in their access to real estate.