Research On Rural Households’ Housing Choice Behaviors

Housing is the attachment of land,the main place for labor reproduction,the important object of public goods capitalization and the main property that rural households can mortgage.Housing is fixed in space,durable in time and explicit in value.Housing choice not only determines rural households’ living space,affects rural households’ descendants and highlights rural households’ ability status,which is extremely important to rural households,but also affects urban and rural land use efficiency,labor flow and capital allocation,and is also extremely important to promote new urbanization and rural revitalization.Housing is the residence of the family,and housing choice behavior is the collective behavior of family members whose emotion is rich.The mainstream neoclassical housing choice behavior research ignores the perspective of family institution,places the family in the "black box",equates the family with an ordinary consumer with complete rationality,stable preference and the goal of maximizing personal utility.From the perspective of family institution,this thesis studies the housing choice behavior of "Half-working and Half-farming" rural households in general agricultural rural areas,hoping to achieve four goals.(1)Systematically researching on rural households’ housing choice behavior from the perspective of family institution,trying to expose the blind spots of existing research perspectives.(2)By referring to the rational choice theory of neoclassical economics,using the theory of new institutional economics,modern behavioral economics,case analysis and game theory to analyze the behavior of rural households’ housing choice behavior,trying to make a beneficial supplement to the mainstream neoclassical research.(3)Analyzing the behavioral interaction between father and son in rural households’ housing choice in the context of family institution by game theory,trying to make up for the deficiency that most existing researches equate family with an ordinary consumer and place it in a "black box".(4)Providing suggestions for rural households to optimize their housing choice behavior in the context of family institution,and providing suggestions for the government to better guide rural households’ housing choice behavior and improve relevant policies in the process of promoting new urbanization and rural revitalization.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)There is a symbiosis evolution relationship between rural households’ housing choice behavior preference and family institutions.Since the founding of the PRC,rural households’ housing choice behavior preference has been evolving with formal family institutions(household registration and its supporting institutions,homestead use institution,fertility regulation institution,family management institution)and formal family institutions(marriage house custom,well-matched custom,family division custom,custom of raising and educating children,"Half-working and Half-farming" custom,custom responsibility of parents to their children).One of the key nodes in the evolution of rural households’ housing choice behavior preference is the 1980 s,since then rural households generally have a preference for building one house in rural areas,and the other is the 2010 s,since then many and more rural households have a preference for building and purchasing two houses,one in rural villages and one in cities and towns,first in rural areas and then in cities and towns.The reasons for rural households’ housing choice behavior preference mainly include the improvement of living conditions and preparing house for children since the1960 s,the demonstration of ability status and the completion of life housing tasks since the 1980 s,the convenience of working in cities and towns and the freedom to choose to live in urban and rural areas since the 2010 s.(2)Family institution can not only directly restrict or encourage rural households’ housing choice behavior,but also indirectly restrict or encourage rural households’ housing choice behavior through economic factors and bounded rationality factors affecting rural households’ housing choice;Economic factors and bounded rationality factors will also affect the restraint or incentive effect of family institution on rural households’ housing choice behavior.The utility maximization of rural households’ housing choice behavior in the context of family system is the maximization of family utility,and is based on the relative utility maximization of the profits and losses of newly selected and existing housing.The former is determined by the inherent attributes of housing itself and objective laws,which is difficult to change due to people’s subjective will,and the latter is the result of reference dependence effect.(3)The game analysis of the behavioral interaction between father and son in rural households’ housing choice in the context of family institution shows that supporting son to build and purchase houses is the dominant strategy of the father.When rural households choose to build houses in rural areas or purchase houses in their hometown cities and towns,from the conditions of realizing Nash equilibrium(purchase house in their hometown cities and towns,support),if:(1)the deeper the father is affected by urbanization ideology,the smaller the negative impact of purchase houses in their hometown cities and towns on the father’s enjoyment of support utility;(2)purchasing houses in hometown cities and towns is more useful to meet the desire of rural households to prepare marriage houses for their son,to highlight their ability and status,to facilitate their children to go to school in cities and towns,to choose to live in urban and rural areas freely,and to facilitate urban employment(if the son works in his hometown cities and towns);(3)the more the son can adapt and enjoy living in his hometown cities and towns;(4)the lower the house purchase cost in the hometown cities and towns,the lower the cost of supporting the father and other living costs after purchasing houses in hometown cities and towns;(5)the more the son can get rid of his dependence on his father;then,compared with building houses in rural areas,rural households are more likely to choose to buy houses in their hometown cities and towns.(4)When rural households choose to build houses in rural areas or purchase houses in their working cities and towns outside their hometown,from the perspective of the conditions for realizing Nash equilibrium(purchase houses in working cities and towns outside hometown,support),the conditions that rural households are more likely to choose to purchase houses in their working cities and towns outside their hometown include the five conditions that are similar to the conditions that rural households are more likely to choose to purchase houses in hometown cities and towns when they choose to build houses in rural areas or purchase houses in hometown cities and towns(the "hometown cities and towns" in the conditions is replaced by "working cities and towns outside hometown"),as well as the condition that the smaller the psychological and spiritual cost of the son’s departure from his hometown.The reason is that compared with purchasing a house in the hometown cities and towns,purchasing a house in the working cities and towns outside their hometown is usually subject to stronger objective constraints of "habits differ from those within 100 li,customs differ from those within 1000 li" and the constraints of traditional concepts such as living-and-working in ones hometown and "falling leaves settle on their roots",which will highlight the psychological and spiritual cost of leaving home.(5)When rural households choose to purchase houses in their hometown cities and towns or in their working cities and towns outside their hometown,from the perspective of the conditions for realizing the Nash equilibrium(purchase houses in working cities and towns outside hometown,support),if the goal is to maximize personal utility,the father is unlikely to support his son to purchase houses in working cities and towns outside hometown.But as long as the son purchase a house in his working cities and towns outside his hometown is useful enough to meet the desire to facilitate his work and his children go to school in cities and towns,the father will support his son at the cost of his own utility.So if the son does have a good job and his children really can receive better education in his working cities and towns outside his hometown,it is worth purchasing a house in his working cities and towns outside his hometown,otherwise,not only the son will bear higher cost of purchasing a house,higher other living costs,higher cost of supporting parents and the psychological and spiritual costs of leaving home,and lose the utility of free choice to live in urban and rural areas,but also the utility of the father.Using the research conclusions,this thesis puts forward some suggestions on the optimization of housing choice behavior of "Half-working and Half-farming" rural households,and puts forward some suggestions on the government to guide more "Half-working and Half-farming" rural households to buy houses in cities and towns,better to guide "Half-working and Half-farming" rural households’ housing choice behavior and to improve the efficiency of formal family institution.