Abstract: With the deepening of housing market reform, the influence of individual factors on living conditions begins to weaken. Based on the CFPS data from 2010 to 2018, this paper makes an empirical analysis on the evolution of China's family housing area inequality from three characteristics: family, head of household and region. It is found that the family size has the highest impact on the housing area inequality, which is gradually accelerated with the reform of the market-oriented process. The social concept of buying a house before marriage and family group housing demand become the main factors to promote the inequality. Moreover, due to the policy influence in the process of market-oriented reform, the influence of the characteristics of individual family and head of household on inequality is gradually reduced, but they are still important factors. With the acceleration of urbanization and the deepening of market-oriented reform, the impact of urban and rural and regional factors on inequality is gradually weakening.

Key words: housing, inequality, Sharpley decomposition