Jobs-Housing Balance and Self-containment of Employment in Shenzhen

Self-containment of employment and jobs-housing balance have been used to examine commuting efficiency from different perspectives. Appropriate jobs-housing ratio provides the potential to achieve high self-containment, while the extent to which the potential balance is affected by other factors. In this study the spatial variation of self-containment of employment and jobs–housing balance is examined using the cellphone data in Shenzhen, China. The relationship between Jobs–housing balance is found to be more important in self-containment of employment for secondary-sector workers compared with that for tertiary-sector workers. Secondary-sector workers tend to reside near their workplaces because of relatively balanced jobs and housing, whereas tertiary-sector workers tend to reside farther away from their workplaces to save housing cost. The study enhances our understanding of self-containment of employment and jobs-housing balance which is primarily based on Western cities.