Exploring the Impacts of Housing Condition on Migrants’ Mental Health in Nanxiang, Shanghai: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

Yang Xiao, Siyu Miao, Chinmoy Sarkar, Huizhi Geng and Yi Lu
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Yang Xiao: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China
Siyu Miao: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China
Chinmoy Sarkar: Healthy High Density Cities Lab, HKUrbanLab, The University of Hong Kong, Knowles Building, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China
Huizhi Geng: College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China
Yi Lu: Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-14

Abstract: Although rapid urbanization and associated rural-to-urban migration has brought in enormous economic benefits in Chinese cities, one of the negative externalities include adverse effects upon the migrant workers’ mental health. The links between housing conditions and mental health are well-established in healthy city and community planning scholarship. Nonetheless, there has thusfar been no Chinese study deciphering the links between housing conditions and mental health accounting for macro-level community environments, and no study has previously examined the nature of the relationships in locals and migrants. To overcome this research gap, we hypothesized that housing conditions may have a direct and indirect effects upon mental which may be mediated by neighbourhood satisfaction. We tested this hypothesis with the help of a household survey of 368 adult participants in Nanxiang Town, Shanghai, employing a structural equation modeling approach. Our results point to the differential pathways via which housing conditions effect mental health in locals and migrants. For locals, housing conditions have direct effects on mental health, while as for migrants, housing conditions have indirect effects on mental health, mediated via neighborhood satisfaction. Our findings have significant policy implications on building an inclusive and harmonious society. Upstream-level community interventions in the form of sustainable planning and designing of migrant neighborhoods can promote sense of community, social capital and support, thereby improving mental health and overall mental capital of Chinese cities.

Keywords: housing condition; neighbourhood satisfaction; mental health; migrants; structural equation modelling (SEM); Shanghai (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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