Exploring job accessibility in the transformation context: an institutionalist approach and its application in Beijing

Journal of Transport Geography 18 (2010) 393–401

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Exploring job accessibility in the transformation context: an institutionalist approach and its application in Beijing Pengjun Zhao a,b,*, Bin Lu b a b

Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Peking University, Beijing, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Keywords: Job accessibility Commuting time Institutionalist approach Housing reform Beijing

a b s t r a c t There is a strong need to explore the determinants of worker’s commuting time as the declines in job accessibility associated with the dramatic growth of commuting time have become a serious negative effect on the quality of urban life in megacities of China. Most well-developed theories exploring change in commuting time are based on neo-classical economic theory. This paper argues however that in the case of China institutional factors of the housing provision system and labour mobility management have been more important. The paper conceptualizes an institutionalist approach incorporating housing and controls over labour mobility and applies it to analyse these influences on workers’ commuting time in Beijing. The analysis shows that the interaction of housing provision, the market system and the Hukou system together have significant impact upon individual commuting time allowing for worker’s annual household income, occupation and transport mode. The findings suggest that the market-oriented housing reforms have changed the local jobs–housing balance that prevailed in pre-reform era and have thus induced growth of commuting time; the remaining the unfair treatment of residents according to their Hukou status may influence the floating worker’s ability to connect housing and workplace opportunities that could reduce commuting time. With respect to future studies, the institutionalist approach seems to be an efficient means of exploring particular factors that emerge in the transformation of an economy. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Accessibility was established as an important concept in understanding human experience and its geographical constraints in the 1960s and 1970s. In general, accessibility describes the ease of access to a particular location (Hansen, 1959). Workers’ job accessibility is often indicated by measuring workers’ commuting time (for example, Farkas, 1992; Gordon et al., 1989b). The shorter the commuting time, the higher the worker’s job accessibility. Job accessibility when measured in this way can be a significant influence upon the quality of urban life because it can influence the time available for other activities, such as leisure pursuits. As Hamilton and Burnett have pointed out, ‘[the high] expenditures for commuting . . . impose some restrictions on the desired quality of life, limiting workers’ time with their families and dampening their energy for reading, public service, outdoor life and culture’ (Hamilton and Burnett, 1979, p. 270). This mechanism, termed the ‘timebudget effect’ (Golob, 2000), suggests the quality of urban life will deteriorate as a result of increasing commuting time. Moreover, * Corresponding author. Address: Urban and Environmental Planning, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, Landleven 1, 9742 AD, Groningen, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 50 363 4553; fax: +31 50 363 3901. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (P. Zhao), [email protected] (B. Lu). 0966-6923/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2009.06.011

although it is important to consider the price of commuting (Giuliano, 1989; Pas, 1998) argues that the time budget may be expected to have more impact upon quality of life issues than the monetary issues. According to a recent survey-based study, ‘A Study of Livable Cities in China: Beijing’ (Zhang and Yi, 2006), the shortage of housing and the increase in commuting time have already had serious effects on the quality of urban life and have become two fundamental ‘bottlenecks’ which government must overcome if it is to develop Beijing as a ‘liveable city’. The problem of job accessibility, characterized by increasing commuting time, appears to be the most serious. The data from the Beijing Second (2000) and Third (2005) Travel Surveys show that from 2000 to 2005 the average travel time by bus and metro increased by 24.2 and 36.3 min, respectively (BTC (Beijing Transport Committee), 2000, 2005). In the interest of future spatial policy, it is necessary to investigate the determinants of commuting time. Many studies have pointed out that apart from land use and worker’s socioeconomic features, institutional factors could influence commuting time, for example, housing provision and market institutions (Maat et al., 2005; Oswald, 1997, 1999) and labour mobility management and labour market constraints (Pinto, 2002; Wang and Chai, 2009). These institutional factors could

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influence commuting time indirectly by affecting the location or relocation of housing, labour mobility, and spatial relations between housing and jobs. However, most well-developed theories exploring job accessibility are based on neo-classical economic theory, which sees no advantage in incorporating institutional factors into explanations of commuting time. According to neo-classical economic theory, individuals make decisions related to commuting time according to the utilities that are available in their choice of housing and job location. Individual commuting time is thus a result of a household’s trade-off based on the minimization of transport costs, housing price or land rent in different locations (Mills, 1972; Muth, 1969). This theory has already been used widely in previous studies exploring the relationships between urban land development and commuting time, for example, the ‘colocation’ hypothesis (Gordon et al., 1989a,b, 1991; Gordon and Wong, 1985), the ‘wasteful commuting’ argument (Hamilton, 1982, 1989; Small and Song, 1992) and the impact of land use on individual ‘utility’ derived from commuting (Maat et al., 2005; Reilly and Landis, 1992). However, the conclusions of these studies are often mixed. One main reason is that, as well as factors related to urban land development, local institutional factors can potentially influence variations in workers’ commuting time (Giddens, 1990). For example, the institutional arrangements surrounding housing provision and the market system can affect housing location choice, and thus individual commuting distances (Cameron and Muellbauer, 1998). In the transformation of an economy, as is occurring in China, political decentralization and new approaches to market operation means the institutional dimension is likely to be more influential. Economic transformation in China means a shift from a centrally planned economy to a market economy system (Pickles and Smith, 1998), in effect a process in which the market economy becomes dominant within the overall economic system (Falke, 2004). In this new context, the emergence of new institutional factors and the coexistence of the new market system alongside the old system greatly complicate decisions surrounding the location of housing and jobs. As a result, individual commuting behaviour, commuting time and hence job accessibility are likely to change substantially, become more uncertain and more difficult to explain. The mix of old and new institutional structures is likely to undermine the expected mechanism governing the relationship between urban land use and individual commuting behaviour so the cost-minimization hypothesis based on neo-classical economic theory (for example, Giuliano and Small, 1993; Punpuing, 1993) will not be relevant. Rather issues related to job accessibility should be studied using an alternative approach which can better incorporate and explain the role of institutional factors. In China case, since the 1980s, China’s cities have been undergoing an obvious transformation which involves three contemporary and interrelated processes: decentralization, marketization and globalization (Chow, 2007; Wei, 2001). The reforms in the housing market and in labour mobility in the work unit (Danwei) have changed the traditional spatial relations between housing and jobs that prevailed in the socialist era. In the pre-reform era, Danwei provided an institutional context that integrated urban productive activities and social life in the same location. Particularly in the Danweis owned by state enterprises, these links were enriched by a local mixture of housing, jobs, hospitals, schools and other urban services (Qiao, 2004; Ren, 2002). As a result, overall commuting time was short and most of commuting activities were by bicycle and on foot. This low commuting time in the Danwei system was ensured by the institutions surrounding the provision of housing, where public housing was the predominant source and housing was regarded as social welfare function and was provided directly or highly subsidized by the Danwei (Zhu, 2000, p. 187). After the 1980s, in the marketization process, the housing reforms aimed

to transform the socialist welfare-oriented housing system into a market-oriented system through the privatization of housing ownership (Huang, 2004; Huang and Clark, 2002; Wang and Murie, 1999). These housing market reforms began to separate the connections between housing and jobs in a Danwei. As a result, the existing local jobs–housing imbalance was reduced and as a result commuting time increased. However, transformation in China is an ‘experimental and gradual’ process in which the old planned system and new market system continue to coexist, with the old planned system still in place and influencing urban development in most cases (Zhu, 2000). Housing consumption is still often subsidized and allocated through some state Danweis, although the housing reform has enabled state enterprises to withdraw from direct housing production (Wang and Murie, 1996; Wu, 1996). As a result, the housing market remains characterized by strong government intervention through the remaining centrally planned system as well as through administrative command-control (Wu, 1996; Zhang, 1997; Zhu, 2000). The mixed effects of housing market reforms during the transformation era will complicate the spatial relations between jobs and housing so will influence the determinants of commuting time in China’s cities. Some previous studies have argued that the changes in housing market and labour mobility management system are major factors inducing the growth of commuting time and the declines in jobs accessibility (for example, Wang and Chai, 2009; Yang and Gakenheimer, 2007) and there has been some empirical evidence for that argument (Wang and Chai, 2009). However, a generally theoretical explanation for the impact of housing provision and labour mobility management on worker’s commuting time remains scarce and there is scope for a major conceptual contribution that incorporates the impact of those institutional factors on individual commuting time. In recent years, new ‘contextual approaches’ have been promoted in urban and regional research in order to offset the disadvantages of micro-economic theory (Dale, 2002; Giersig, 2005). In a contextual approach, local political factors and sociological mechanisms are taken into consideration. The institutionalist approach is an important example of this new thinking (Bryson et al., 1999; Hudson, 2000) and is derived from what has been labelled new institutionalism (Healey, 2006). It emphasizes the complex interactions between the activities of formal government bodies (state, municipal and local governments), economic activity and social life, which are interlinked through social networks, cultural assumptions and practices which cut across formal organizations (Alexander, 2005; North, 1990). The institutionalist approach examines individual behaviour, including commuting from home to workplace, as both an instituted process and a socially embedded activity. The primary significance of the institutional mechanism is to explain individual behaviour within its constituted context. As Stough has pointed out, ‘after cost-minimization theory (from neo-classical economic theory), institutions are probably the most important factor in explaining land use and transport decisions and patterns of land use’ (Stough, 2004, p. 33). This study applies the institutionalist approach to analyse worker’s commuting time in Beijing. A study which studies the impact of institutional factors on job accessibility in transformation China’s cities would have unquestionable theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, the study would enhance the institutionalism thinking of geography by applying it to transportation in a new context, revealing the deep mechanism of connections between institutional constraints and individual commuting outcomes. As few countries have undergone such an obvious and deep transformation as China, research on its institutional factors associated with workers’ job accessibility could provide significant insight. In a practical sense, it would reveal a number of implications for housing policy and labour mobility management which could be used to contain the growth of commuting time and de-

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clines in job accessibility, especially once integrated with the approaches to the provision of huge and expensive transport infrastructures. Hence understanding the influences of institutional factors on commuting time is a primary step for transport researchers in developing strategies which will lead to enhanced job accessibility through innovation in development management and related urban policies. This study conceptualizes an institutionalist approach and applies it to analyse workers’ commuting time in Beijing.

2. Examining institutional factors: an institutionalist approach As mentioned above, most studies concerning job accessibility rely on explanations based on the standard or rationalist urban model (Alonso, 1964) which derives from neo-classical economic theory. Although having become the basis of the most significant micro-economic models of the relationship between transport and land use, the standard urban model still has some theoretical and empirical limitations when used to explain the relationship between urban land use and individual commuting time in actual cities. For example, the standard urban model assumes that each household is able to compare two alternatives in a choice set using a preference-indifference operator. This means that the decisionmaking rules are deterministic and that an analyst can observe and grasp all the dimensions of the problem. However, the complexity of human behaviour in fact suggests that the decision-making rules are constitutionally stochastic, such that even complete knowledge of the problem would not overcome the uncertainty involved in its analysis. Some of these uncertainties have been outlined by Anas (1982, p. 57) and categorized as unobserved alternative attributes, unobserved individual attributes, unobserved attributes of location and dwelling, measurement errors and instrumental variables. In contrast to the rationalist approach the institutionalist approach explains individual job accessibility measured by commuting time from a completely different perspective. From an ontological point of view, the rationalist approach is concerned with an ‘ideal’ unit (agency) within an isolated economic world, where economic forces are isolated from other forces (structure) (Hausman, 1992). However, the institutionalist approach is concerned with ‘real’ economic and social life and involves a direct analysis of structure, as represented by a broad set of institutional and social factors. From a methodological point of view the rationalist approach focuses on microanalysis, whereby an individual action is assumed to be influenced by a given set of scarce resources in relation to a particular set of circumstances. The rationalist approach based on neo-classical economics stresses the rationality involved in individual decision-making. This is to say that ‘rational’ individuals can weigh the costs and benefits of all the possible options and make a decision which will maximize utility. In contrast, the institutionalist approach is macro-oriented and ‘is grounded in a relational view of social life, which focus on people actively and interactively constructing their worlds, both materially and in the meanings they make, while surrounded by powerful constraints of various kinds’ (Healey, 2006, p. 35). The various elements of the institutionalist approach can be divided into two categories, institutions and agencies. Institutions include such elements as management rules, government organization, the housing market, the labour market and informal social rules. There are a broad range of agencies, including such elements as individuals, households and neighbourhoods as well as governments, firms or social organizations (Amin and Thrift, 1995; Clingermayer and Feiock, 2001; North, 1990). The institutionalist approach stresses the importance of individual decisionmaking, as well as the structure and networks that these decisions

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sustain. According to the institutionalist approach, individual actions are to some extent determined by socially based institutional structures; however, at the same time individuals can change the structures within which they live. That is to say, agency and structure in the institutionalist approach are considered as an integrated duality rather than a dualism. In this sense, individual commuting can be seen to be the result of interactions between individual agents (workers) and various institutions, such as organization that shape housing provision and the market system. The institutionalist approach involves different levels according to the form of the institutions concerned. Salet and Faludi (2000, pp. 13–24) have outlined three levels of institutional analysis: social rules and belief systems, formal rules of regimes (constitutions, the economic order, the structuring of policy systems) and institutional reflection in practice, while Stough (2004) has summarized four levels of institutionalist analysis of the transport/land use connection based on Williamson’s typology of four forms of institutions (WIlliamson, 2000). Stough’s four levels of institutionalist analysis are: informal institutions, which are deeply embedded values, norms, customs and traditions; formal institutions, which are rules codified by laws, regulations, administrative orders and administrative statutes; governance institutions, which are rules, including minor laws, administrative orders and regulations at the local level and reflecting the preferences of local stakeholders and decisions-making; and resource allocation institutions, which are made up of the action and behaviour patterns of a diversity of actors in the decision-making environment, ranging from government agencies to firms and non-profit organizations. In the present study, two levels are emphasized in the analysis of formal institutional factors influencing job accessibility in the transformation context: the housing provision system and labour mobility management. Housing provision and labour mobility management will influence commuting time insofar as they determine housing location and the spatial relationship between jobs and housing. In a freemarket system, the housing market and labour markets can adjust to each other and in some cases can maintain a local jobs–housing balance over time. This conception has already been used in the ‘co-location’ hypothesis to explain the impact of urban spatial structure on workers’ commuting time (for example, Gordon et al., 1989b; for example, Gordon and Wong, 1985). Workers’ job accessibility is influenced by an equilibrium state in relation to the housing and labour markets (Dubin, 1991; Mills, 1972). However, when the housing and labour markets have restrictions placed upon them, thus preventing a free housing and labour market, the ‘mutual’ adjustment of the housing and labour markets will be affected. Such conditions often prevail in centrally planned economies, which have a high number of ‘thick’ government institutions, or those transitional countries which maintain strong planning controls, for example, China. A housing provision system influences housing consumption via a number of restrictions associated with institutions which include housing allocation and ownership rules (or property rights), housing affordability and management rules, and legal and formal regulations of the housing market. Oswald (1997, 1999) found that home ownership is one important factor influencing labour mobility and argued that commuting can be a substitute for residential mobility amongst home owners. Some research has found that renters, when compared with owners, are more likely to change the location of their residence in order to minimize commuting time when they change their jobs (for example, Green and Hendershott, 2001; Hamilton, 1982). Generally, workers who own their homes tend to have shorter commuting times and relatively higher accessibility to jobs. Therefore, institutional factors which influence housing provision and ownership, such as housing affordability and management rules, influence workers’ job accessibility. In

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China, housing has been considered to be a form of social welfare provided to employees by state-owned or collectively owned work units called Danweis (Wang and Li, 2004; Wang and Murie, 1996, 1999). Within a work unit, housing and workplace are generally in proximity, thus employees’ job accessibility is relatively high. Some studies have pointed out that labour market constraints are significantly associated with workers’ commuting characteristics (for example, Simpson, 1992). In particular, labour mobility management constrains labour mobility, and hence influences workers’ commuting times (Wang and Chai, 2009). The influence of labour mobility management on job accessibility can be understood in terms of institutional ‘thickness’. According to the institutional approach, the institutional thickness, considered in relation to a whole series of social, cultural and institutional forms and supports, is one kind of factor determining individual behaviour, including that related to job accessibility (Amin and Thrift, 1994). Higher degrees of institutional thickness tend to reduce the uncertainties that might exist when there is less institutional involvement. However, if the institutional thickness is excessive it also can lead to diminishing returns. Strong labour mobility management can limit the mutual adjustment occurring between housing and jobs and affect the local jobs–housing balance, in turn influencing job accessibility. To some extent the transport system can overcome or at least minimize the effects of structural discontinuities arising due to institutionally shaped housing and labour market segmentation by reducing the effects of geographical constraints (Pratt, 1996). In this sense, the importance of transport lies in it being a means of bringing together segments of the labour market, making it possible for individuals to reduce the constraints arising when residential accommodation is in one locality and employment opportunities lie in another.

3. Analysing workers’ job accessibility in China 3.1. Housing provision, housing market and job accessibility Since the 1980s, when urban housing reform was implemented, market rules mediated by price mechanisms have emerged in the allocation of house ownership in China. In the housing reforms process, housing was commoditized, and real estate markets have now emerged in China (Chen, 1988; Dowall, 1993). The housing reform aimed at transforming the socialist welfare-oriented housing system into a market-oriented system (Wang and Murie, 1999). In this privatization process, occupiers have been encouraged to attain full ownership through purchasing in the market (Huang, 2004). In Beijing, the empirical findings show that workers who resided in public housing provided by a Danwei gradually moved from renting work unit housing to owner occupation over the period (Li and Yi, 2007). Changes in the housing ownership structure have significantly influenced job accessibility in Chinese cities. As mentioned above, in the pre-reform Danweis (state or collectively owned work units), housing was provided to workers at low rents or even in some cases free by enterprises. As the Danweis usually consisted of a compound which housed employees along with commercial and production activities in one area, commuting time would be short with work easily accessible by foot or bicycle. After the housing reforms of the 1980s, this public housing provision system changed with housing demands generally met by the new housing market (Wu, 1996), leading to an obvious increase in private home ownership (Li, 2000; Li and Li, 2006). This new situation could greatly affect employees’ commuting time For example, since the end of Wang and Chai, 2009s, most new Danwei employees cannot access public housing within their work units (Sato, 2006), but have to

seek cheaper housing, often at locations remote from their workplace. As a result, housing market reform has increased commuting demand (Wang and Chai, 2009; Wu and Yeh, 1999). However, the housing market changes in China is not yet a perfect example of the transformation process (Haila, 2007; Yuan, 1997). According to Li and Tang (1998), apart from the housing from open market, there are other three types of housing sources, which are strongly managed by government command or plancontrol, can now be identified: Danwei, housing bureau and resettlement housing. Public housing from the state-owned Danwei or from the government is still the dominant housing source in the Beijing housing market in the current transformation stage (Li, 2000). Housing privatization in the transformation era in Beijing is characterized by the transfer of public housing to a form of ownership which is different to the open market in Western cities. Since the early 1990s, the sale of public housing owned by Danwei or government sectors to their occupiers at a governmentdetermined standard price has been permitted. Due to the lowerprice and the very substantial stock compared to housing available on the open market, public housing from Danweis was the main source of commodity housing within Beijing at the beginning of the housing market reform period. For example, in 1995 housing bought from Danweis accounted for 93.09% of the total housing in Beijing (Beijing Real Estate Association, various years), although its share in the total housing source has been decreasing. For example, in 2005, there were still around 1.7 million housing units owned by various Danweis and the housing from Danweis still accounted for 40.3% of total re-dealing housing (er shou fang) (Liu, 2005). The institutional element that allowed the sale of Danwei housing to existing tenants has meant that the original spatial relationship between housing and workplace tended to be maintained, despite an increase in home ownership within most Danweis and workers who bought housing from the state-owned Danwei generally have shorter commuting times than average (Wang and Chai, 2009). In contrast, the owners of housing bought from private developers on the open market have no direct spatial relationship with their job location, as the housing available on the open market is distributed within the city according to market rules. As a result, those who bought housing from private developers now tend to have a longer commuting time than those who have the right to buy public housing. 3.2. Labour mobility management and job accessibility Labour market institutions such as those involved in the administration of the labour market, the management of state-owned enterprise reform and policies on rural migrant workers might also influence workers’ commuting patterns. In China, the influence of labour market institutions can be understood in terms of the labour market reform instituted in relation to state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which were the dominant employers in China. In the pre-reform period, an SOE functioned as ‘a social–political community’ which was not only focused on ‘meeting production and financial plans’ but also on social welfare provisions such as health and housing (Walder, 1989). As noted earlier, even employment was seen as a kind of social welfare provision by SOEs. Once a job was offered to a worker their level of mobility between jobs was very low. In this situation, a job could be seen as a ‘steel bowl’ which encompasses the worker’s daily livelihood and social welfare. Since the 1980s, a wide range of reforms of SOEs have been carried out to increase their economic efficiency, among which two significant aspects are the relative reduction of social responsibilities and reductions in staff (Hassard et al., 2006). The marketoriented reforms within state-owned enterprises have significantly changed the relationship between jobs, housing and social welfare (Yusuf et al., 2006). In some cases, workers’ social welfare has been

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separated from the Danwei they have always serviced (Russell et al., 2001). The job is no longer a form of social welfare more but determined by market supply and demand. At the same time, the wage-setting system also changed and is also now determined by a market system. As a result, the differences in the wages of workers have increased within the labour market system. The reforms have also greatly increased labour mobility (Meng, 2000). In most Danweis, the spatial relationship between job and workplace has changed and the two tend to be more separated. As a result, the market-oriented reforms within SOEs can be considered as another factor increasing commuting demand in Beijing. In China, the household registration system (Hukou system) is a unique labour market institution related to workers’ job accessibility. According to the Hukou system, people within the state are divided into two categories: residents with urban Hukou and residents with rural Hukou. Before the 1980s, there were limitations on the number of those with rural Hukou who were permitted to move to the city to work. Under the Hukou system, migrant workers (also referred to as the floating population) are often denied many of the basic privileges enjoyed by urban residents who have urban Hukou. Furthermore, a household’s Hukou has long served as the basis for the allocation of many goods and services, such as basic foodstuffs, housing and jobs, as those with urban Hukou consumed more goods and services than those with rural Hukou (Yang, 1993). The situation did not change until reforms implemented since the 1990s relaxed control of rural labour mobility (Knight and Song, 2005). However, the Hukou system that remains in place today is still one factor influencing job accessibility in China’s cities, in particular in relation to a floating population which does not have a local urban Hukou. For example, very few SOEs have provided housing assistance to temporary workers who make up this floating population (Fan, 2001; Ma and Xiang, 1998), while cheap housing at a low price was provided to residents with local urban Hukou. As a result, most rural migrants are concentrated in suburban enclaves or peri-urban villages (Ma, 2004), where the long distance to central areas and poor transportation services creates a long commute to most jobs.

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face-to-face interviews were conducted with 25 local households in each selected community. The survey successfully interviewed 1500 respondents. After data checking, some communities were excluded because of missing data, leaving a sample of 47 communities, including 44 urban communities and three villages. In these 47 communities, the detailed data from each household were also checked and if too much data were missing they were also excluded. As a result, 613 employed persons from 613 households were used in the analysis. The impact of the institutional factors on commuting time in this study is revealed by multiple linear regression. Worker’s commuting time is defined as dependent variable. The institutional factors are indicated by independent variables. The housing source and housing ownership are selected to indicate the intuitional factor of housing provision and market. The employment sector and Hukou status are used to reflect the institutional factor of labour mobility management. In addition, in order to examine the relative significance of the impact of the institutional factors on commuting time, other factors are also examined. Many studies have found that individual and household socioeconomic characteristics can largely explain variations in commuting time (for example, Séguin and Bussière, 1997; Vandersmissen et al., 2003). For example, household income can affect workers’ commuting time through either housing location choice or through the worker’s ability to afford commuting costs (Giuliano, 1989). The positive relationship between household income and commuting time has already been identified by many studies (for example, Hanson and Pratt, 1995; McLafferty and Preston, 1997). The individual worker’s occupation also has an impact on commuting time. For instance, Stead and his colleagues (2000) found that those with professional or managerial jobs travel further than those with semi-skilled manual professions. In this study, two variables have been selected to indicate individual and household socioeconomic characteristics. They are the annual household income and the worker’s occupation (see Table 1). Therefore, the impact of institutional factors on commuting time is estimated by:

Ai ¼ a0 þ a1 Pi þ a2 Hi þ a3 W i þ a4 T i 4. Empirical evidence in Beijing

i ¼ 1;    ; k ðk ¼ 613Þ

An empirical study of Beijing has been carried out to broaden and deepen the insights outlined above. The data used in this paper are derived from a household interview survey conducted in Beijing between April and June 2006. The household interview survey was undertaken by the ‘Residential mobility and urban restructuring under marketization’ research group, which was led by Professor Li Si-Ming from Hong Kong Baptist University and Professor John R. Logan from Brown University. Among other questions, employed respondents were asked to report their one-way commuting time. In this paper, the data concerning one-way commuting time is used to measure an individual worker’s job accessibility such that the shorter the one-way commuting time, the higher the worker’s job accessibility. The respondents were also asked to provide information about personal socioeconomic aspects, such as gender, age, Hukou status, annual household income and employment sectors. Information concerning the characteristics of workers’ housing was also requested, such as housing source and housing ownership. During the data collection process, a multilevel probability proportion to size (PPS) sampling strategy was used to sample in all urban districts in the central area and inter-suburban area of Beijing. This approach led to the selection of 60 communities, with 51 urban communities selected (Juweihui in Chinese) along with nine villages (Cun in Chinese). A systematic sampling approach was used to select households within these communities and

where Ai is the one-way commuting time of worker i. Pi is the vector describing the worker’ socioeconomic features, such as household income and occupation. Hi is the vector representing the attributes of the worker’s house, for example, source and ownership. Li is the vector representing the features of the worker’ employment sector and Hokou status. Ti is the transport mode of worker i. a0,. . ., a4 are the estimated coefficients. Tables 2 and 3 present the results of regression analysis for worker’s commuting time. Certain variables were omitted from the regression analysis when high multicollinearity was detected. In this study, the variance inflation factor (VIF) was examined in the regression analysis to check for multicollinearity. According to Hair et al. (1995), a usual threshold for identifying high collinearity or multicollinearity between independent variables is a VIF value in excess of 10. The regression results in Table 3 shows that all independent variables analysed had a VIF value lower than 10. This means that the regression analysis has a goodness of fit in relation to the independent variables. The regression results show that R2 is 0.492, which indicates that 49.2% of the variation in individual worker’s commuting times can be explained by the inde-

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Table 1 Institutional and socioeconomic variables analysed. Variables

Name of variables

Value and description

Housing source

HCOM HDAN HOTH HOWN EGOV ESDA EPRI ESEL HUK OCCL OCCMH OCCO HINC TRAWB TRAP TRACO

=1 If commercial housing; other =0 =1 If housing bought or rented from Danwei; other =0 =1 If housing bought or rented from Government due to urban redevelopment or other sources; other =0 =1 If housing owned; other =0 =1 If worker is employed by party authority, government and public institutions; other =0 =1 If state-owned enterprises; other =0 =1 If joint venture, private and enterprises founded by FDI; other =0 =1 If self-employed and others; other =0 =1 If urban resident; other =0 =1 If low-skill professional and management worker; other =0 =1 if middle-level or high level professional and management worker; other =0 =1 If junior public officer; other =0 Continuous variable =1 If walking (on foot) or using bicycle; other =0 =1 If public transport mode (public bus, Danwei bus and metro); other =0 =1 If car transport mode (private car, Danwei car provided by work unit) and other transport modes; other =0

Housing ownership Employment sector

Hukou status Occupation

Annual household income Transport mode

Table 2 Summary of regression model. R

R square

Adjusted R square

Std. error of the estimate

F

Sig. (a)

0.702

0.492

0.481

18.518

44.624

0.000

Table 3 Results of regression analysis for worker’s commuting time. Independent variables

B (unstandardized coefficients)

Std. error

(Constant) HCOM HDAN HOTH HOWN EGOV ESDA EPRI ESEL HUK OCCMH OCCO HINC TRAP TRACO

10.868** 1.915 0.947* 0.853 1.965 3.468 4.194** 2.220 4.816* 8.505* 0.596* 2.546 1.475* 38.818** 11.512**

4.678 5.041 1.220 2.115 2.284 3.078 2.055 2.212 2.972 3.790 2.053 1.934 3.184 1.699 2.321

* **

Beta (standardized coefficients)

t Statistics

Collinearity statistics (VIF)

0.065 0.434 0.071 0.037 0.035 0.067 0.032 0.055 0.073 0.116 0.041 0.015 0.710 0.162

2.323 0.519 1.776 0.667 0.860 1.127 2.041 1.003 1.621 1.744 1.802 1.317 1.634 22.853 4.961

2.208 1.587 1.316 2.130 1.152 1.269 1.204 1.373 1.233 1.367 1.147 1.275 1.136 1.250

Denotes significant at p < 0.10. Indicates significant at p < 0.05.

pendent variables presented in Table 3. The F value is 44.642, with a significant probability (a = 0.000). This indicates that the regression analysis is statistically significant and the regression equation has a high goodness of fit. The results in Table 3 shows that individual commuting time is significantly and negatively related with Danwei housing (HDAN) confirming the earlier observation that workers who live in housing owned or rented from Danwei have shorter commuting times. The finding implies that the housing provision system is one important factor influencing workers’ commuting time. It suggests that any further break in the traditional relations between housing and jobs in Danwei would have a negative effect upon commuting time. Unexpectedly, housing ownership (HOWN) has no statistically significant relationship with worker’s commuting time. According to Oswald (1997, 1999), housing ownership is one of the important factors influencing individual commuting time because the changes in housing ownership is often linked with the changes in location of home or workplace. However, the findings from the above regression analysis suggest that changes in housing ownership did not have a significant influence on commuting time at the community level in Beijing. This situation in Beijing owns much to

the unique housing market system in Beijing. As above mentioned, in the market-oriented housing reform process, public housing from Danwei was a main housing source. For example, in the sample examined in this thesis, only 11.8% of all respondents bought housing from outside Danwei system. As a result, for most workers in a state-owned Danwei, changes in housing ownership only meant the transfer of housing ownership from the State to the private sector and did not cause changes in the spatial relationship between the workers’ housing and their workplace. In these circumstances new forms of housing ownership have had a limited influence on a spatial relationship between jobs and housing and thus few effects on commuting time and job accessibility. The regression results show that workers’ commuting time is significantly and negatively related to Danweis owned by stateowned enterprises (ESDA). The workers employed in such Danweis tend to have shorter commuting times. As in some state-owned enterprises, Danweis are still the main source of housing provision in housing market. Local spatial relations between housing and jobs have been maintained so workers have shorter commuting times. The regression results show that the commuting time has a statistically negative and significant relationship with household in-

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come (HINC). A higher household income is reflected in shorter commuting time. The main reason is that the high household income would increase the worker’s ability to adjust housing location to reduce commuting time. Above findings are consistent with that of some previous studies: household income has a significant impact on workers’ commuting time, and the higher the household income, the shorter the worker’s commuting time (Gordon et al., 1991). The regression results in Table 3 also show that Hukou status (HUK) has a relatively significant relationship with worker’s commuting time. A worker with a local urban Hukou will have a shorter commuting time. As discussed above, the Hukou refers to a system of residence permits which is unique to China. Since the 1980s, in the context of the market reforms, the government has started to relax the Hukou system and allow residents with rural Hukou to find work freely in the cities, while residents with urban Hukou from one city are allowed to move to another city. However, there are still many differences in the way individuals are treated today, firstly, between residents with urban Hukou and those with rural Hukou, and secondly, between migrants and those residents with local urban Hukou. For example, the residents with rural Hukou, in particular migrants without local Beijing Hukou, are disadvantaged in relation to obtaining medical insurance, jobs, social housing, and even in relation to their children’s education. As a result, the unfair treatment of residents according to their Hukou status may influence the floating worker’s ability to adjust housing and workplace locations to reduce commuting time. Table 3 shows that a worker’s occupation and employment characteristics have significant relationships with commuting time. The results suggest that a high or middle-level professional and or management worker (OCCMH) would have a shorter commuting time. There are at least two main reasons for this. Firstly, a worker with an occupation in the high or middle-level professional and management sector would have higher wages and as a result a relatively high ability to adjust the location of housing and workplace, thereby achieving a shorter commuting time. Secondly, such a worker would also have advantages in accessing public housing, which has a high proximity to the workplace in most state-owned Danwei (Wang et al., 2005). For example, an empirical study undertaken by Li and Yi (2007) in Beijing has already revealed that Party cadres and people who have worked long term in Danwei were most likely to gain access to public housing which is near to worker’s workplace in most cases.

5. Discussion and conclusion The declines in job accessibility caused by dramatic growth of commuting time have already become one serious problem of quality of urban life in megacities of China. In the interests of future public policy, it is important to explore the determinants of worker’s commuting time. Including land use and worker’s socioeconomic features, institutional factors would also have great impact on worker’s commuting time, such as housing provision and market and labour mobility management. However, most previous studies are limited to examining the factors of land use and worker’s socioeconomic features, while neglecting the institutional factors. As a result, the policy designed to contain the growth of commuting time has focussed on improving transport infrastructure to meet the ever-growing travel demand, while little attention is paid to institution innovations in development management that could achieve commuting time reductions. Understanding the influences of institutional factors on commuting time is a primary step politicians must take to solve the problem of declined job accessibility caused by increasing commuting time through developing policy innovations.

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In transitional and developing countries, uneven changes to old institutions and the introduction of new institutional factors can influence commuting time through their effects on housing provision and labour mobility for different workers in a range of locations. It is necessary to analyse the impact of these institutional factors in order to fully explore the variations in job accessibility. This study shows that in Beijing, the process of transformation of two institutions involving the housing provision and labour management have impacts on individual commuting time. At one level the changes in housing in Danwei has been shown to still exert significant influences on commuting time, as market-oriented housing reforms have not been influential enough yet to break the traditional relations between job and housing locations to change commuting time substantially. Hence the coexistence of the traditional housing provision system and the market allocation system (Li, 2000) has retained some of the features of commuting patterns. This is a special outcome of public housing privatization where previous tenants have become owners, and the traditional spatial proximity of housing and workplace is maintained. This part of the housing market will continue to influence the local jobs–housing balance, thereby maintaining commuting times for the workers’ who reside in it. However, as fewer workers are able to gain access to public housing and have to buy or rent from private developers on the open market commuting times will possibly rise as much of this housing supply is in suburban areas where housing is cheaper, but where longer commutes are likely. The findings imply that the recent market-oriented reforms in housing would increase commuting demand since it tends to decrease the share of Danwei housing in housing source. Above analysis also shows that the worker’s employment sector has a significant relation with their commuting time. The empirical findings in Beijing indicate that the workers who are employed in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have shorter commuting times. However, ongoing labour market reform is believed to eventually destroy the Danwei system as the traditional spatial form of the jobs and housing unit (Hill, 2005). Dismantling work unit system would have a significant influence on workers’ job accessibility through the need for increasing labour mobility and greater separation of jobs from housing. In the transformation process, the relaxed Hukou system has also significantly increased labour mobility, in particular the movement of workers from rural areas and small cities to larger cities. Nevertheless, the results of regression analysis show that Hukou system has significant impact on individual commuting time and the worker with a local urban Hukou has the shorter commuting time. The finding suggests that while the Hukou system remains in place it will inhibits access to some jobs and cheaper housing, and thus plays a negative role in improving the job accessibility for those without the local urban Hukou. With respect to future studies, the results above show there is a strong case for more attention to be paid to the institutionalist approach in studies of the determinants of individual commuting time. It provides a sense of understanding beyond that associated with neo-classical economic approaches which suggest ‘co-location’ associated with ‘mutual’ adjustment occurring due to ‘optional’ behaviour related to housing and jobs will reduce overall commuting time (Gordon et al., 1989a,b). However, these outcomes are only likely in a usually unacknowledged institutional context, one where a large number of location choices can be taken by firms and residents so that there can be some balance between jobs and housing during the urban development process (Levinson and Kumar, 1994; Peng, 1997). The influence of institutions is especially apparent in the market transformation context, where some in established institutions are undergoing change while new institutions are emerging. Here housing provision and labour mobility are greatly influenced by established non-market institu-

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tions, so that market rational housing and job location decisions are limited. In this context, individual commuting time is shaped by these institutional constraints. Here exploring institutional factors influencing workers’ commuting time is particularly valuable. In the interests of future policy, institutional innovations in the housing provision policy and Hukou management should be considered an important way of containing the growth of commuting time, integrated with the way of improving transport services. Housing policies should be introduced into land use policy to achieve a better ‘balance’, or match, between jobs and housing s market based strategies are developed. In particular, the supply of lower-price social housing should be encouraged by policy so as to reduce the commuting time of low-income workers, which will assist the outcome of new state strategies designed to address social equity, such as those introduced under the banners of ‘Building a Harmonious Society’. Acknowledgements The travel data used in this study came from a housing survey undertaken in 2006 by Professor Li Si-Ming from Hong Kong Baptist University and Professor John R. Logan from Brown University. The authors would like to thank them for their data support. The authors thank Professor Gerard Linden and Dr. Johan Woltjer in the University of Groningen for their comments on the original draft of this paper. Thanks also to Prof. Kevin O’Connor and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. References Alexander, E.R., 2005. Institutional transformation and planning: from institutionalization theory to institutional design. Planning Theory 4 (3), 209– 223. Alonso, W., 1964. Location and Land Use. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Amin, A., Thrift, N., 1994. Living in the global. In: Amin, A., Thrift, N. (Eds.), Globalization, Institutions, and Regional Development in Europe. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 1–22. Amin, A., Thrift, N., 1995. Globalization, institutional ‘thickness’ and the local economy. In: Healey, P., Cameron, S., Davoudi, S., Graham, S., Madinipour, A. (Eds.), Managing Cities: The New Urban Context. John Wiley and Sons Ltd., Chichester, pp. 91–108. Anas, A., 1982. Residential Location Markets and Urban Transportation. Academic Press, New York. Beijing Real Estate Association, various years. Beijing Real Estate Statistical Yearbook (in Chinese: Beijing shi fang di can tong ji nian jian). China Statistics Press, Beijing. BTC (Beijing Transport Committee), 2000. Beijing Second (2000) Travel Surveys (in Chinese: Beijing di san ci jiao tong diao cha). Beijing: Beijing Transport Committee and Beijing Committee of Urban Planning (in Chinese: Beijing shi jiao tong wei yuan hui he Beijing shi gui hua wei yuan hui). BTC (Beijing Transport Committee), 2005. Beijing Third (2005) Travel Surveys (in Chinese: Beijing di san ci jiao tong diao cha). Beijing: Beijing Transport Committee and Beijing Committee of Urban Planning (in Chinese: Beijing shi jiao tong wei yuan hui he Beijing shi gui hua wei yuan hui). Bryson, J., Henry, N., Keeble, D., Martin, R., 1999. The Economic Geography Reader. Wiley, Chichester. Cameron, G., Muellbauer, J., 1998. The housing market and regional commuting and migration choices. Scottish Journal of Political Economy 45 (4), 420–446. Chen, X., 1988. Giant cities and the urban hierarchy in China. In: Mattei, D., Johan, D.K. (Eds.), The Metropolis Era: A World of Giant Cities – Volume I. Sage, Newbury Park, CA. Chow, G.C., 2007. China’s Economic Transformation, second ed. Blackwell Publishing Ltd., London. Clingermayer, J.C., Feiock, R.C., 2001. Institutional Constraints and Policy Choice: An Exploration of Local Government. Sate University of New York Press, Buffalo. Dale, B., 2002. An institutionalist approach to local restructuring: the case of four Norwegian mining towns. European Urban and Regional Studies 9 (1), 5–20. Dowall, D., 1993. Establishing urban land markets in the Peoples Republic of China. Journal of the American Planning Association 59 (12), 182–192. Dubin, R., 1991. Commuting patterns and firm decentralization. Land Economics 67 (1), 15–29. Falke, M., 2004. Community interests: an insolvency objective in transition economies? Frankfurter Institut für Transformationsstudien (1/2). Fan, C.C., 2001. Migration and labour market returns in urban China: results from a recent survey in Guangzhou. Environment and Planning A 33 (3), 479–508. Farkas, Z.A., 1992. Reverse commuting: prospects for job accessibility and energy conservation. Transportation Research Record 12, 85–92 (1349).

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