Cohort trajectories in Hong Kong's housing system: 1981-2001

A household's progression through a housing system depends not just on the current social, economic and policy context but also on past housing experiences and circumstances. Different birth cohorts, because of their location in a specific socio-economic and policy environment, may have distinct residential trajectories. Five waves of Hong Kong Census data are used to trace tenure change of different birth cohort groups from 1981 to 2001. The paper shows that it was the new and expanding middle class entering the labour market in the early 1980s, which were the most likely to enter, and benefit from a booming private housing market. However, the public homeownership sector, which encompasses schemes whereby the supply and price are controlled by the government, offered more uniform assistance to other birth cohorts. Moreover, this state-assisted sector played a particularly important role in sustaining the growth of homeownership when housing was least unaffordable and also during the recession following the Asian Financial Crisis.