Patterns in China of car ownership and expenditure in household budgets, 2011 to 2017

China is motorizing rapidly as economic growth takes place alongside increasing car ownership. However, little is known about the determinants of household car ownership, and especially about how they are changing as this motorization process takes place. A major reason for this knowledge gap is the very limited available data resources compared to Western societies. In this paper, we present analyses of household car ownership and expenditure on automobiles using a unique panel dataset, the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS). Among our findings, we identify four clusters of households with distinct income and expenditure characteristics consistently existing from 2011 to 2017. We also demonstrate distinctive temporal patterns in expenditure in the periods prior to, at-time-of, and following car acquisition for car-purchasing households. Finally, factors underlying car ownership and expenditure are found to be generally consistent across waves, however, a younger household is revealed to be a positive predictor for car ownership which is contrary to findings in Western countries.