Abstract: Studies on early socialist societies found that ideological, political processes, especially the changes of national policies had effects on social inequality. Had the marketoriented reforms changed this mechanism of social inequality? With the subsidence of debates aroused by Victor Nee’s market transition theory, attention has been paid to the relationship between the mechanism of market and the mechanism of “redistribution”(or socialist institution) again, and the effects of institutional environment on social inequality have been highlighted too. This paper suggests that the current fixed forms of economy of China might have intensified social inequality due to the lack of a balance between “market” factors and “redistribution” power. Empirical analysis on housing inequality in this paper shows, today’s housing inequality in urban China has not only been caused by the market, but also by the housing allocation system before the housing reform, and the institutional segmentation can still be found in housing inequality. The empirical analysis suggests that institutional factors still have effects on social inequality, and at some point they can reinforce inequalities caused by the market.

Key words: institutional segmentation , housing inequality ,  , housing reforming