China's housing provident fund: Inequitable and inefficient

The housing provident fund policy (HPF) is originally taken as a way for employee to apply for loans and withdraw the entire balance for purchase, construction, renovation or repair of an apartment of house, or upon retirement, incapacity, migration abroad, etc. However, based on existing research and data, some contradictions and complexities of both the content of housing provident fund policy and the means of implementation are revealed. Inequitable and inefficient are two main problems existing in the HPF policy. If the two main problems could not be solved, the HPF policy would be another failure during the housing reform in China. The aim of the research is not to discredit the housing provident fund idea, but to draw attention to potential policy failures in order to identify issues which need-to be addressed by policy makers, implementers and researchers.