Empirical analysis of tenants' intention to exit public rental housing units based on the Theory of Planned Behavior - The case of Wuhan, China

Regulated exit from public rental housing (PRH) after lease expiration plays a crucial role in fair allocation of the PRH units in China. There were incidents of exit difficulty happened previously which undermined the PRH allocation and its principles of fairness and efficiency. However, very few studies have directly investigated the determinants of tenants' intention to exit. This paper adopts the analysis framework based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to explore the factors influencing tenants' intention to exit PRH from a variety of aspects including personal and family characteristics, satisfaction with allocation process, housing management, and understanding of exit policy. The research finds that the factors such as education level, family income, household size, floor area, allocation satisfaction and understanding about PRH policies have statistically significantly positive effects on intention to exit PRH. While tenants' satisfactions with housing management, environment and neighborhood would inhibit intention to exit. As the study reveals, more attention is needed to provide skill training, build appropriate exit mechanisms and implement exit policies strictly to encourage the intention to exit and promote PRH exits in an orderly manner.