The Impacts of Housing Affordability Stress on Social Integration of Married Migrant Workers: A Comparison of Six Cities in Eastern China

Migrant workers are experiencing increasingly severe stress (especially housing stress) in urban areas, largely due to the Hukou system and the soaring housing price. Housing stress generally refers to financial stress, and is usually measured by housing affordability index. Poor housing affordability undoubtedly affects housing consumption of migrant workers, and hinders them from integrating into the local society. Housing affordability stress was found to influence social integration of migrant workers, so were city-specific factors. Because housing costs and income levels vary from city to city, this paper aims to make comparisons concerning the effects of housing affordability stress which have seldom been made from the perspective of urban hierarchy. Cities in Eastern China have undergone the most rapid social and economic development, which attracts the largest number of migrant workers. We estimate an ordinal logistic regression model in six cities in Eastern China and data from 2014 Internal Migrant Dynamic Monitoring Survey was employed. Besides the effect of housing affordability stress, the influences of individual characteristics, family factors, hometown features, and host city characteristics on social integration of migrant workers were looked into. It was found that social integration of married migrant workers associated with urban hierarchy, taking into account of individual characteristics, and features of migration, housing, neighborhood, and culture in the host city. Housing affordability stress could exert negative effects on social integration of married migrant workers, which varied in cities of different hierarchies. The effects of housing affordability stress on social integration of married migrant workers were significant in first-tier cities and third-tier cities, while the effects were insignificant in second-tier cities. The differences may be influenced by both married migrant workers’ residential expectations and local policies. Hence, local governments should improve the social integration of married migrant workers by taking into account of local conditions, such as urban hierarchy. Besides, Family-related characteristics (such as family scale and dual-career family) also imposed significant impacts on social integration of married migrant workers.