A nationwide study of factors associated with household car ownership in China
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Le Vine, Scott
Wu, Chenyang
Polak, John
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Car ownership is growing very rapidly in China; whilst this is a reflection of sustained economic growth, it presents a major challenge to Chinese transport policymakers. The consequences of China's motorization also extend beyond the national borders, however, via mechanisms such as increased demand for new automobiles produced in North America and Europe and the global atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases. Chinese cities are also experimenting with innovative transport policies to manage increasing car ownership, which in a number of cases go beyond the menu of policy options that have traditionally been considered in the West. Despite policy interest for these reasons, China's motorization process is poorly understood, in part due to a scarcity of relevant data.
This paper contributes to the body of literature regarding this phenomenon by drawing on a unique data resource: the 2011 wave of the China Household Finance Survey (n = 8438 households). This is a disaggregate national-scale survey dataset developed to monitor economic conditions in China, though to the authors' knowledge the CHFS has not previously been employed to study patterns of car ownership.
We report a set of three analyses, to identify factors associated with: 1) whether a household owns at least one car, 2) multiple car ownership, and 3) whether a household owns a new car. Amongst other empirical results, we find that living in a rural area is negatively associated with car ownership, net of confounding effects, and that within towns/cities poor accessibility (i.e. long travel time) to the town/city centre is also negatively associated with car ownership. These findings regarding spatial effects are contrary to typical findings in the West, where car ownership is generally lowest in urban centres.
An earlier version of this study was presented at the 2017 Transportation Research Board conference.
This paper contributes to the body of literature regarding this phenomenon by drawing on a unique data resource: the 2011 wave of the China Household Finance Survey (n = 8438 households). This is a disaggregate national-scale survey dataset developed to monitor economic conditions in China, though to the authors' knowledge the CHFS has not previously been employed to study patterns of car ownership.
We report a set of three analyses, to identify factors associated with: 1) whether a household owns at least one car, 2) multiple car ownership, and 3) whether a household owns a new car. Amongst other empirical results, we find that living in a rural area is negatively associated with car ownership, net of confounding effects, and that within towns/cities poor accessibility (i.e. long travel time) to the town/city centre is also negatively associated with car ownership. These findings regarding spatial effects are contrary to typical findings in the West, where car ownership is generally lowest in urban centres.
An earlier version of this study was presented at the 2017 Transportation Research Board conference.
Date Issued
2018-10-01
Date Acceptance
2017-10-16
Citation
IATSS Research, 2018, 42 (3), pp.128-137
ISSN
0386-1112
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
128
End Page
137
Journal / Book Title
IATSS Research
Volume
42
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2017 International Association of Traffic and Safety Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
EPSRC
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000448362700004&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
EP/I038837/1
EP/I038837/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Transportation
Car ownership
China household finance survey
Motorisation
Developing country
Logistic regression
VEHICLE OWNERSHIP
AUTO OWNERSHIP
WORLDWIDE
GROWTH
CHOICE
STOCK
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2017-10-22