Understanding young skilled migrants’ homeownership outcomes in Guangzhou: the role of employer types and settlement intentions

Du, Haitao (2025) Understanding young skilled migrants’ homeownership outcomes in Guangzhou: the role of employer types and settlement intentions. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Industrial development and technological innovation depend heavily on knowledge-based activities. It is safe to say that skilled migrants play an essential role in economic growth, technological innovation, and progress that can drive cities’ sustainable and rapid development. Thus, how to attract and retain skilled migrants in the permanent labour market has become a key focus of China’s social policy agenda. Previous studies on migrant housing tenure choice and settlement intentions have mainly emphasized the role of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, migration characteristics, and institutional constraints in determining homeownership outcomes. However, the literature linking migrants’ employment types and homeownership outcomes, and how employment types interact with settlement intentions, has been surprisingly silent.

In order to take a step forward, this thesisuses a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative statistical analysis and qualitative interview methods, to disentangle the underlying mechanism of income levels and settlement intentions in shaping the relationship between employer types and homeownership outcomes.

There are fourkey findings from this thesis.Firstly, young skilled migrants working in the public sector are more likely to become homeowners in Guangzhou than those working in the private sector.Secondly, as income grows, the positive role of public sector jobs in shaping homeownership outcomes becomes less pronounced.Thirdly, long-term settlement intentions mediate the relationship between young skilled migrants’ employer types and homeownership outcomes. Fourthly, three key life domains of employment, settlement intentions, and homeownership outcomes are intricately and closely linked.

This thesis calls for policymakers to consider the interplay between employment, settlement, and housing rather than looking at them in isolation when considering future policies to encourage private-sector employment, increase settlement intentions, and promote homeownership.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: J Political Science > JA Political science (General); J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies
• Supervisor's Name: Wong, Dr. Mark and O’Brien, Dr. Philip
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85113
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 08 May 2025 10:10
• Last Modified: 08 May 2025 10:17
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85113
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85113