Headship Rate Projections for Housing Demand in Johor, Malaysia

Abstract

Household formation trend is closely linked with the numbers of population. Meanwhile, the formation of households is largely influenced by the composition of the adult population that are measured by headship rate. This paper attempts to project headship rate which acts as a main predictor in determine potential housing demands. Population and Housing Census data from year 2000 and 2010 has been used in this projection headship rate for Johor state. Modified two-point exponential method was applied to determine the headship rate. All the data was categorized into five years interval for the ages between 15 to 80+ years old. Results indicate that the projected headship rates for age 15-19 and 20-24 are significantly decreased. However for the age’s groups 40-44, 50-54, 55-59 75-79 and 80+ years old, the projected headship rate increased until year 2020. This demonstrates, the decreasing ability of young people under 25 years to become homeownership as compared to people from the age groups of 40 years and above. The findings of this study could be used as a basis for the government to identify numbers of potential housing demand in Johor.