The inquiry that has culminated in this thesis was inspired by the challenges that many young Chinese people were facing when trying to gain access to affordable housing at the time of study, the early 2010s. By then, more than thirty years of housing reforms had completely changed how housing was being provided in China. The resulting structure had led young people to access housing in ways that were very different from those of their parents’ generation (Deng, Hoekstra & Elsinga, 2017). T...