Housing market segmentation in Swedish local authorities.Immigrants and Swedes; Young and old

Abstract

The intention of this article is, firstly, to investigate housing market segmentation with respect to various age groups and to immigrants within Swedish local authorities. Secondly, it aims at trying to describe the differences between local authority areas with varying degrees of segmentation. It is important to differentiate between HOUSING SEGREGATION, which refers to separated dwellings between households in geographical space, and HOUSING MARKET SEGMENTATION which concerns legal and financial relationships to housing. In many cases housing segregation has decreased through the construction of housing estates where privately‐owned, co‐operative and rented flats are integrated, although the housing market segmentation has increased. A good deal of the housing market segmentation in a local authority refers to the stock of flats, the types of housing, the forms of occupancy, the categories of ownership on the housing market. Secondly the differences between local authorities often refers to the structure of economic life and geographical location in the country. In the first case in this explorative study, housing market segmentation between immigrants and Swedes, four variables account for 52 percent of the variation between local authority areas. Together these variables give an indication that ethnic housing market segmentation is high in industrialized areas with a slow development during the last decade. These areas are often situated quite near metropolitan or big regional centres. The ethnic housing market segmentation seems to have a very close connection with the socio‐economic segmentation, as it is high in ethnic segmented areas. In the second case, the housing market segmentation between age‐groups, two housing market characteristics account for 77 percent of the variations between local authority areas. A large proportion of dwellings constructed before 1950 and a homogeneity in the housing market seems to reduce the segmentation between age‐groups. This segmentation is much less than the ethnic one.