Caught in the housing trap

The average price of a home in Beijing grew from 56,000 yuan a square meter in October to 63,000 yuan a square meter in March, an increase of 9 percent. [Photo by Song Niansheng, Long Wei and Kuang Linhua/China Daily]

Starting a family

All this raises the question of whether anyone wanting to start a family will be forced to leave Beijing. If they opt to stay, will these people be so preoccupied with making ends meet that they have no time or passion to improve society in the many different fields in which they are engaged?

In short, will soaring housing prices suck the vitality out of the nation's capital?

The Wu couple said they are not bothered about the impact debt will have on their careers and their lives generally.

"So that we can pay off the debts to our relatives as soon as possible and save enough money for unexpected situations like unemployment, we will spend less on entertainment, such as dinner parties and movies," Wu said.

"Another thing is that we cannot quit our present jobs unless we have something else lined up. That's the kind of freedom we have lost by buying the house, but it means our baby can grow up in a stable environment, and for that it's well worth the price."

In any case, "constantly changing houses is a bad thing for children," he said.

As for employment, Wu said salary is just one important element, another being whether a job fits into a lifelong career.

Lucky couple

Gwen Zhu, 31, said the Wu couple are undoubtedly very lucky, and certainly a lot luckier than she is.

Zhu, from Jiangxi province, entered the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 2009, aiming to obtain a doctorate and eventually embark on an academic career.

Staying at the institute would also have given her the possibility of obtaining the hukou, or registered resident permit, she said.

However, in 2010 she changed her mind about her career path, based mostly on how little she would be paid if she worked in academia, she said. So after graduating she joined a fund company in Beijing, where she trained in the field of communication stocks.

The Beijing government, as part of measures to control the price of housing, now demands that buyers possess the hukou, in the absence of which they would need to have worked in Beijing and paid social security contributions for a minimum of five years. But relying on that rule would have been futile for her, Zhu said, because in five years, rising prices have pushed housing increasingly out of her reach.

"I really should have tried to get a job at the institute so I could get a hukou. But the pay was too low, and it's especially difficult to achieve academic success in China. Anyone who aspires to become a scientist is more likely to choose to go to countries like the United States, where an ordinary research scientist can live a reasonable life on a decent income."

One of her fellow senior students at the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth got a position there after graduating with a master's degree, but she quit recently and began working for Homelink, the largest real estate agent in China, selling houses, which "really shocked me," Zhu said.

"It's not easy for a student with only a master's degree to get a position there. She is outstanding, but the salary is too low, especially when you look at soaring housing prices."

For Zhu, continuing soaring housing prices point to class solidification in Beijing, meaning that the less well-off will be excluded.

"It has become normal that graduates from Peking and Tsinghua universities cannot afford a house in Beijing. There are many good universities in the city, but not every graduate can stay here. The bar is rising."

Those aged above 30 who have started thinking about starting a family but cannot afford a house will have to move to other cities, Zhu said.

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