Si-ming Li, Life course and residential mobility in Beijing, China, Department of Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, En

RELEVANCIA: Investigación en datos de panel que permite identificar factores que hacen a la movilidad residencial.
Al ser una analisis de cross data y serial data permite analizar además de los movimientos en la residencia en relación a eventos del curso de la vida y caracterticas sociodemograficas de la población, sino también en función de aspectos relacionadios con el cmabio en el sistema de provisión de vivienda y de la economía, en general.

PROPOSITO: This paper analyzes the residential mobility rate in Beijing over the period 1980- 2001 as revealed by retrospective residential histories collected by a questionnaire survey conducted in early 2001.

METODOLOGIA Y DATOS:
The period under study is 1980 to time of interview, that is, March 2001. This 21-year time period is subdivided into eleven subperiods, each covering a time span of two years.

Dependent Variable:
The logit model is then applied to relate resident moves (the dependent variable) to the set of life-course events and socio- demographic characteristics of the individual (independent variables).
The major objectives are to know to what extent the specific life-course events identified have caused residential moves and how the mobility rate is related to changes in the housing-provision system and the economy at large. The mobility rate rather than the hazard rate is the object of the analysis.

The set of independent variables includes:
(1) AGE and AGESQ (age squared). Most studies on mobility and migration show that the age effect is curvilinear, with the mobility rate peaking in the young adult years (Clark, 1982; Long, 1988); hence the quadratic term is added.
(2) SEX (1 ˆ male and 0 ˆ female). Studies conducted in market economies have found that women tend to move less frequently than do men for most of their life except early adulthood (Long, 1992).
(3) MARITAL (change in marital status), the importance of which is self-evident.
(4) BIRTH (birth of a child; births of first and subsequent children are all included in this variable). This will generate further housing needs, and hence the need for housing adjustment.
(5) JOB (change in job). In all economies job location and housing location are intimately related. In China, under the traditional work unit system, the two often amount to the same thing.
(6) CCP (membership of the Chinese Communist Party at time of survey). Party membership facilitates movement up the job ladder, which in turn will lead to movement up the housing ladder (Li, 2001a; Logan et al, 1999).
(7) EDUCATION (level of educational attainment at time of survey). This is indexed by a series of dummies: PRIMARY, JUNSEC (junior secondary), SENSEC (senior secondary), and TERTIARY, with PRIMARY being the reference category. Education affects a person's preference. Moreover, in a socialist redistributive economy advancement along the job ladder depends very much on a person's level of educational attainment (Szelenyi, 1987). In this sense, EDUCATION also measures the likelihood of change in occupational rank and can be interpreted as a proxy for the latter. This interpretation is useful as change in occupational rank is not available from the dataset.
8) TENURE (tenure status, or tenure status before move if a move had taken place within the subperiod concerned, with 1 ˆ own and 0 ˆ rent).
9) The subperiod or TIME dummies,(2) with the reference group being the most recent or current subperiod, that is, 2000 ^ 01.

RESULTADOS:
The results show that there was a sharp increase in residential mobility in the early reform period; however, from the mid-1980s onwards the mobility rate has been oscillating, with a slightly downward trend.
Adjusting the gross mobility rate observed by means of logit regression estimation
shows that this downward trend is more than a statistical artefact. Structural forces are at work continually to restrain residential moves under the reform. The regression results also show that,although there are similarities between the effects of various life-course variables on residential mobility in Beijing and those in cities in market economies, substantial differences are also found.
Age exhibits similar curvilinear effects but mobility peaks at a somewhat later age. Homeownership with partial property rights deters mobility by an even greater margin in Beijing than in cities in the West.
Change in marital status is important, but does not automatically bring about a change in residence. Birth of a child, moreover, appears to carry minimal weight in residential change.
In this sense, the thesis that residential mobility is a housing-adjustment process is less applicable to the case of Beijing than it is in cities in the West.