A comparison on social mobility between homeowners of subsidised housing and private residential housing in Hong Kong

Abstract

Housing is a basic human need and acts as a shelter for accommodation. In traditional Chinese culture, the importance of home ownership is much more than that. Youngsters may desire to own their flats and build families. Nevertheless, the housing price of Hong Kong goes up drastically while the increment of salary could never catch up with the inflation. A worldwide statistical report, the Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, demonstrated that Hong Kong was the least affordable housing market among 92 major housing markets in the world. In Hong Kong, purchasing a flat is unaffordable to some individuals especially youngsters. Some of them will save money or request their parents to pay the initial down payment of the property in order to step up the housing ladder through purchasing their first self-owned flats. Which type of tenure will they purchase? Will they continue to move up the housing ladder in the future? This research is worthy to be examined because there are few relevant studies to compare the social mobility between subsidised and private housing homeowners in Hong Kong. The housing career of participants is examined to study the effect of educational attainment and social mobility. The age and education attainment of 2 groups of homeowners will be compared to find out if higher education attainment will promote or impede home ownership in Hong Kong.