The impact of housing affordability on the subjective well-being of urban youth: evidence from China

With the acceleration of China’s urbanization process and the population agglomeration effect driving sustained growth in housing demand, soaring housing prices and increasingly prominent housing affordability issues have significantly impacted the happiness of urban youth. Previous studies have lacked a specific focus on the housing burden faced by urban youth. This paper first explores the mechanisms through which housing affordability influences the Subjective well-being of youth. Using data from the 2018 China Household Income Project (CHIP), it empirically examines the impact of housing affordability on youth happiness. Furthermore, the moderating effects of education level and total household debt were verified. To address potential endogeneity issues, the study tested the residual inclusion method. The results show that there is a robust negative correlation between housing burden and the life well-being of urban youth. The higher education level of the head of household can alleviate this correlation to some extent, while the total amount of household debt exacerbates the negative impact. The innovative contribution of this study lies in its sociological perspective and use of large-scale survey data to empirically demonstrate the negative impact of housing burdens on the subjective well-being of urban youth, while also examining heterogeneity and the moderating effects of education and family debt.