The Power of Residential Stability: How Stable Housing Shapes Social Class Identity Among Migrants

Wanqing Wei¹Jing Ma^2*

• ¹East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
• ²Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

ABSTRACT To address the challenge of identifying the residential stability effect confounded by the wealth effect, this study employs a unique Chinese residential type— "borrowed housing/kinship housing"—to assess this effect. This type of housing not only eliminates the influence of wealth effect but also reflects the function of residential stability, thus providing a solution to the identification problem in housing policy evaluation research. Using longitudinal data from the China General Social Survey, this study examines the impact of "borrowed housing" on the social class identity of the internal migrants and its mechanisms. The key findings are as follows: (1) The residential stability effect of "borrowed housing" significantly improves the social class identity of migrants. Compared with migrant market renters, migrants living in "borrowed housing" report higher levels of social class identity. These results remain robust after addressing endogeneity bias through 2SLS and endogenous switching regression models. (2) The analysis of multiple mechanisms indicates that residential stability of "borrowed housing" positively affects social class identity by improving social capital and subjective well-being. This study offers implications for optimizing the urban housing security system and evaluating the social effect of affordable housing such as shared-ownership housing and public rental housing.