Home Ownership and Political Participation in Urban China

This paper examines the impact of private home ownership on the tendency to engage in neighborhood-level politics among urban Chinese citizens. We focus on voting in neighborhood Residents' Committee elections as well as local legislative elections, highlighting the role of the neighborhood type on voting. Our analysis of the 2005 China General Social Survey data reveals that homeowners are more likely than nonowners to vote in both elections, lending support to a conservatizing effect of private home ownership. However, this effect seems to exist only in neighborhoods consisting mainly of commercial housing units as opposed to previously state-owned housing. The implications of these findings for China's political future are discussed.