Housing Inequality Research Articles

Housing Uncertainty: Socio-economic Inequality and Forex Loans Trajectories in the Bosnian Housing Market

This article explores the nexus between the financialisation of housing and socio-economic inequality in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). In this context, since the post-war economic reforms, driven by deindustrialisation, the precarisation of labour, and dependent financialisation, housing loans have become a ‘privilege’ for a restricted group of people with high and stable incomes. Instead, the housing aspirations of Bosnians are generally met with the aid of consumer loans and the ostensibly cheaper FX loans that were introduced in the mid-2000s. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, this paper highlights the enduring features of the polarised credit market in BiH. It particularly focuses on the period after the 2008 crisis when lending policies were only mildly re-regulated. FX loans never became the object of an ad hoc law to convert them to Bosnian convertible marks. This institutional approach has been unable to challenge the extreme class segmentation of housing finance and is still fostering indebtedness and precarious housing conditions among the lower-income segments of Bosnian society even after the pandemic.

Digital exclusion and poverty in the UK: How structural inequality shapes experiences of getting online

Digital exclusion and poverty are understood to be closely linked, and existing literature on the topic makes clear that the contexts of people's lives shape their experiences of digital exclusion in important ways. Indeed, the online and offline aspects of life are in many regards inextricable. As such, this paper focuses on the complex relationship between digital exclusion and poverty, and examines how a range of spatial, material, and temporal factors related to experiences of poverty shape opportunities to use the internet. Drawing upon qualitative data from interviews with coaches and participants in a programme which seeks to help low-income people find work, manage their money, and get online, the paper traces several key ways in which different aspects of poverty – including housing inequality – coalesce to shape experiences of digital exclusion. In doing so, the paper argues that examining the ways in which these seemingly offline aspects of poverty affect opportunities to use the internet provides an opportunity to enhance understandings of exactly how digital exclusion is manifested for those experiencing poverty.

Resource Opportunity in China’s Market Transition and Governance: Time Factor in Urban Housing Inequality

Since China’s reform and opening up, the country’s rapid marketization process has been accompanied by the rapid growth of inequality, which has been significant for all classes of society. In terms of its impact, housing inequality is particularly noticeable. In this paper, we discuss the influence of real-estate purchase time, organization, human capital, and political capital on the value of real estate and the appreciation of real estate in China by using a conditional mean model and a quantile regression model. The differences in the degree of influence of these factors on different quantile levels are also investigated. We found that, after adding the time factor, the prior possession of resources in the early stage of market transformation will benefit the long-term marketization process. Organizations that can penetrate “market-redistribution” and professions that directly participate in the distribution of real-estate resources also have significant advantages in this regard.

Can COVID-19 Reopening Plans Mitigate Cycles of Residential Displacement?

This article uses interviews of long-standing neighborhood residents’ sentiments of university expansion into their community. These data provide persuasive empirical evidence for the need of urban anchor institutions to include as an integral component of their campus reopening efforts, intentional plans for reducing the disruption of housing patterns of permanent residents. The term COVID exposure has come to signify not only the potential to succumb to the virus, but it also implies the revealing of inequities in systems that impact the effects of the crisis within Black and Brown communities. Every sector of U.S. society has been impacted by COVID-19, and it has required a paradigm shift in our interactions with one another. Academic institutions are enacting robust de-densification efforts which will stimulate dramatic shifts in the off-campus housing needs for students, but they stand the chance of displacing or further disadvantaging the long-standing residents who reside outside of their campus border. Universities must use reopening plans as an instrument to change the trajectory of relationships they hope to cultivate with their long-standing neighbors, through renewed engagement efforts that integrate lessons from the past and that seek to build stronger neighborhoods by challenging housing inequity and housing inequality.

Neoliberalization and inequality: disparities in access to affordable housing in urban Canada 1981–2016

The neoliberalization of housing policy and housing financialization have brought unequal impacts on housing outcomes. Drawing on eight waves of census data, this study uncovers the changing mechanism of housing stratification in selected Canadian census metropolitan areas from 1981 to 2016, a period when Canada transitioned from a welfare housing regime to a neoliberal regime. This study reveals entrenched housing inequality and strengthened income effect in determining access to affordable housing in the neoliberal era. Housing financialization has significantly contributed to intensified inequality in accessing affordable housing. Access to affordable housing in Canada is also stratified along the lines of gender and immigration status. Homeownership affordability for low-to-moderate-income households has significantly deteriorated over time, representing a new form of housing vulnerability in the neoliberal era.

Pet-Friendly for Whom? An Analysis of Pet Fees in Texas Rental Housing.

Previous studies have underscored the difficulty low-income pet owners often face when attempting to secure affordable rental housing. Further exacerbating this housing disparity are fees charged on top of normal monthly rent to pet owners in “pet-friendly” rental housing. In this study, we aggregated rental housing listings from the twenty most populous cities in Texas, USA from a popular online rental database. We paired the rental listings with census tract information from the American Community Survey in order to investigate economic and racial/ethnic patterns in the spatial distribution of the properties. We find that less expensive pet-friendly listings were more likely to have pet fees charged on top of rent than rental units that were more expensive. Additionally, when pet fee burden was defined as a function of average income by census tract, low-income communities and communities of color were more likely than higher income and predominantly White communities to pay disproportionately higher fees to keep pets in their homes. We also find patterns of spatial inequalities related to pet fee burden by a metric of income inequality by city. The burden of pet rental fees may contribute to both housing insecurity and companion animal relinquishment. We discuss these findings as they relate to inequalities in housing, with particular attention to marginalized and disadvantaged people with pets. We conclude with recommendations for policy and practice.

Understanding housing inequalities in urban Pakistan: An intersectionality perspective of ethnicity, income and education

ABSTRACT Urban housing inequality is a major academic and policy concern in Pakistan, but empirical investigations and, in turn, evidence-based policy interventions are limited. This study examines the nature of housing inequalities and their determinants focusing on ethnolinguistic groups using a nationally representative household survey, where housing inequality is measured using two indicators: housing space usage (room per capita) and access to utilities (an index based on access to piped water, sewerage, cooking gas, and electricity). Results show that housing inequality by ethnicity is very high, and ethnic belonging, along with socioeconomic factors, significantly influences space consumption and access to utilities. Intersectionality between ethnicity, income, and education plays a crucial role in housing inequality. Balochi, Sindhi, and Siraiki communities have a lower potential for achieving adequate housing than other communities. To reduce housing inequalities, identified disadvantaged communities along with the economic poor should be targeted through housing policies and programmes.

Housing inequalities and resilience: the lived experience of COVID-19

COVID-19 policy responses have intensified the use of housing as a spatial and material defence against community spread of infection. In so doing, they have focussed attention upon pre-existing inequalities and the effects of socio-economic management of COVID-19. This paper draws upon individual households’ accounts to explore these effects on housing inequalities, and then adapts a critical resilience framework from disaster response in order to examine the implications for policymaking. The empirical work centres upon a case study of lived experiences of COVID-19-constrained conditions, based on a longitudinal-style study combining semi-structured interviews with 40 households, photographs and household tours at two datapoints (before/during COVID-19) in Victoria, Australia. The study reveals how these households were impacted across four domains: (1) employment, finances, services, and mobilities; (2) homemaking including comfort and energy bills, food and provisioning, and home-schooling/working from home; (3) relationships, care and privacy, and; (4) social, physical and mental health. The interviews also indicate how households coped and experienced relief payments and other related support policies during COVID-19. Drawing upon literature on disaster response, we highlight the centrality of vulnerability and resilience in recognising household exposure and sensitivity to COVID-19, and capabilities in coping. From this analysis, gaps in COVID-19 housing and welfare policy are exposed and guide a discussion for future housing policy interventions and pandemic planning.

Housing and Neighborhoods as Root Causes of Child Poverty.

Understanding how housing inequities among families with children are rooted in structural racism is important for identifying opportunities to engage in ongoing and collective work as pediatricians to lift children out of poverty. This article discusses the complex mechanisms between housing and child and family health outcomes, and offers potential solutions linking housing, health programs, and policy solutions. Beginning with a review of historical antecedents of housing policy and their impact on health inequities, the authors outlines policies and structures directly linked to disproportionate housing instability and inequities in health outcomes among children. This article examines four key domains of housing - affordability, stability, quality, and neighborhood - and their relationship to child and family health. Finally, the authors present multidimensional solutions for advancing health equity.

Migrant mothers: work, nation and racialisation in Swedish official discourses 1970–2000

ABSTRACT Images of migrant mothers have been a powerful marker for otherness in discourses of gender, migration and racialisation in Sweden. These women are often described as a problematic group in official discourses on labour-market policy, social welfare and gender equality. Taking as its point of departure the belief that knowledge production constitutes a central arena for deploying relations of power, the purpose of this article is to explore how migrant women’s experiences of motherhood have been represented in the Swedish Government Official Reports (SOU). What conditions of (im)possibility for motherhood, everyday life and integration into Swedish society are expressed in these government reports? How is the position of migrant mothers related to working conditions, intergenerational transmissions and reproduction dilemmas? The article focuses on the years between 1970 and 2000, a period that was characterised by profound transformations in Swedish society expressed not only in changing migration regulations and new gendered divisions of labour but also in the emergence of racialised patterns of inequality in housing, the labour market and access to social welfare. In so doing, the article contributes from the perspective of economic history to contemporary debates on the nexus between migration and racialisation in postcolonial societies.

Mortality attributable to housing deprivation in Belgium between 1991 and 2015

Abstract Background Poor housing condition is associated with increased mortality. Our aim is to measure the inequality in mortality attributable to housing deprivation in Belgium. Methods We utilized data on housing conditions from the 1991 population census, and data on mortality from the National Register in Belgium between Jan 1, 1991 and Dec 31, 2015. An area-level composite score was developed and computed for 18 267 statistical sectors in Belgium. The score was based on indicators encompassing multiple dimensions: occupancy status and its density, absence of central heating, bathroom, toilet, kitchen, double glazing. These indicators were combined to a score, ranked and assigned to deciles. The mortality attributable to housing inequality was calculated as the difference between the observed and expected deaths. The expected deaths were computed by applying mortality in the least deprived decile to other deciles, stratified by 5-year age group, sex, and time. Results Our results show that 20% of all deaths, equating to 2 564 289 deaths, occurring between 1991-2015 can be attributable to inequalities in housing. The proportion of deaths attributable to inequality in housing increased over time and was higher for men (26%) than for women (14%). The difference in age-standardized mortality rates between the most and the least deprived groups increased over time from 31 to 37% and from 10 to 26% for men and women, respectively. Conclusions Housing conditions play an important role in mortality inequalities and ensuring good housing conditions is necessary for reducing inequalities. Key messages Poor housing condition is associated with increased mortality. Our results show that 20% of all deaths, equating to 2 564 289 deaths, occurring between 1991-2015 can be attributable to inequalities in housing.

Re-Examining the Effect of Job Sprawl on the Black-White Housing Consumption Gap: Evidence Following the Great Recession

This article examines the association between employment decentralization and the Black-White housing consumption gap since the Great Recession. This research investigates the extent to which post-recession spatial patterns of employment facilitate, or impede, the recovery for Black households. The model estimates a statistically significant correlation between job sprawl and the Black-White housing gap, although the direction depends upon the level of sprawl and measure of housing consumption. For example, while job sprawl is associated with a reduction in the Black-White unit size gap, that association only holds in high-sprawl metropolitan areas. In one area of improvement since the recession, job sprawl is correlated with a reduction in the ownership gap in a majority of metropolitan areas. However, job sprawl is also correlated with an intensification of the suburban ownership gap in the vast majority of metropolitan areas in the study. This study counters conventional arguments that unplanned sprawl may reduce intergroup inequality, and that metropolitan land use regulations may therefore exacerbate inequality. The results of this research demonstrate that inequality persists in light of competitive market forces that generate sprawl. Metropolitan land use policies that mitigate sprawl may therefore be legitimate tools for mitigating intergroup inequality in metropolitan housing markets.

Renovations as an investment strategy: circumscribing the right to housing in Sweden

There is an emergent field of writings on financialized landlords’ undertaking of apartment renovations as an investment strategy and its effect on housing inequalities. Seldom do these studies contextualize these tendencies within countries’ specific housing policy traditions. Therefore, through a qualitative case study in a neighbourhood in Sweden, this paper aims to uncover how private landlords undertake renovations as an investment strategy and its effect on tenants and, in turn, on the hybrid character of a universal housing system. It finds that renovations enable landlords to extract value from the built environment while tenants experience rising rents, a lack of information, poor property maintenance, and apprehension. Hence, I argue that renovations represent an investment strategy that serves to undermine the traditional social right to housing within a universal housing policy context. The paper thus furthers knowledge on how the situatedness of financialization tendencies entails their translation through and transformation of housing systems.

Generational variations in the timing of entry into homeownership in Shanghai: The role of family formation and family of origin

Radical housing reform has triggered tremendous changes in both housing supply and housing demand in China over the past four decades, leading to apparent generational fractures in homeownership. In contrast to the rising age of first dwelling purchasers in some Western countries, younger cohorts in China are entering homeownership at increasingly younger ages despite rising housing prices. Based on a retrospective survey conducted in Shanghai in 2018 and 2019, this study examines the changing roles of family formation and parental background in affecting the timing of entering homeownership across different cohorts. Employing event history analyses, this study demonstrates that transitions to first homeownership have become synchronised with family formation among younger cohorts, which implies the social norm of ‘marital home’. Furthermore, the results reveal that parental background is increasingly influential in determining the timing of first home purchase; men and individuals from one-child families are more likely to be the beneficiary of parental help to enter homeownership. Through the lens of cohort, this study contributes to understanding the changing role of family formation and family of origin, which are shaped by institutional and cultural transformations in China. The intensified intergenerational transmission leads to exacerbation of horizontal housing inequality, that is, some achieving homeownership at a younger age while others being shunned from homeownership in the context of worsening housing affordability.

Socioeconomic inequalities and the Covid-19 Pandemic

The aim of this review is to examine the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on health inequalities and discuss effective public policies in containing them. The Covid-19 pandemic has generated not only an unprecedented health crisis, but also a severe economic recession and rapid increase in unemployment and economic difficulties. The poorer socioeconomic classes have been most affected by SARS-CoV-2 infections and deaths due to inequalities in working, housing and area of residence conditions, psychosocial factors, as well as unequal access to health care. However, the effects of the pandemic on health inequalities can be tackled by effective policies of Covid-19 containment based on testing, tracing and isolate timely and stronger social protection measures on behalf of the most disadvantaged populations.

Resilience Gentrification: Environmental Privilege in an Age of Coastal Climate Disasters

Climate change is exacerbating storms at the same time that humans are increasingly settling in areas most affected by such storms. In theory, post-disaster recovery offers opportunities to rebuild for sustainable development. However, in reality, responses to climate events often result in greater inequality through a process we termresilience gentrification. Three possible resolutions to the coastal resilience dialectic are managed retreat, denial, and structural mitigation. Structural mitigation has become the most popular response in the Anthropocene. This response raises the cost of coastal redevelopment, giving capital greater access and control over development decisions. These changes make coastal areas more expensive and more exclusive. We illustrate this process in the post-disaster recovery of two very different communities: Gowanus, Brooklyn and the Caribbean island of Barbuda. In both cases, attempts to build it back “green”—using selective aspects of “sustainable development” as a guide—come at the cost of exacerbating existing housing inequality. In this way, “resilience” gets equated with wealth, thus reinforcing a cycle of climate injustice. To achieve a “just sustainability,” government responses must consider and address the equity impacts of climate change resilience policies. Managed retreat and degrowth strategies for climate resilience offer greater potential for a just sustainability in the Anthropocene.

Dangerous liaisons? Applying the social harm perspective to the social inequality, housing and health trifecta during the Covid-19 pandemic

Global rates of excess mortality attributable to the Covid-19 pandemic provide a fresh impetus to make sense of the associations between income inequality, housing inequality and the social gradient in health, suggesting new questions about the ways in which housing and health are treated in the framing and development of public policy. The first half of the paper uses a social harm lens to examine the threefold associations of the social inequality, housing and health trifecta and offers new insights for policy analysis which foregrounds the production, transmission, and experience of various types of harm which occur within the home. The main body of the paper then draws upon the outcomes of an international systematic literature mapping review of 213 Covid-19 research papers to demonstrate three specific harms associated with stay-at-home lockdowns: (i) intimate partner and domestic violence, (ii) poor mental health and (iii) health harming behaviours. The reported findings are interpreted using a social harm perspective and some implications for policy analysis are illustrated. The paper concludes with a reflection on the efficacy of social harm as a lens for policy analysis and suggests directions for further research in housing studies and zemiology.

Spatial Inequality in China’s Housing Market and the Driving Mechanism

Housing inequality is a widespread phenomenon around the world, and it varies widely across countries and regions. The housing market is naturally spatial in its attributes, and with the transformation of China’s urbanization, industrialization, and globalization, the spatial inequality in the housing market is increasingly severe. According to the geospatial differences in the housing market supply, demand, and price, and by integrating the influencing factors of economic, social, innovation, facility environment, and structural adjustment, this paper constructs a “spatial–supply–demand–price” integrated housing market inequality research framework based on the methods of CV, GI, and Geodetector, and it empirically studies the spatial inequality of provincial housing markets in China. The findings show that the spatial inequality in China’s housing market is significant and becomes increasingly serious. According to the study, we have confirmed the following. (1) Different factors vary greatly in influence, and they can be classified into three types, that is, “Key factors”, “Important factors”, and “Auxiliary factors”. (2) The spatial inequalities in housing supply, demand, and price vary widely in their driving mechanisms, but factors such as the added value of the tertiary industry, number of patents granted, and revenue affect all these three at the same time and have a comprehensive influence on the development and evolution of spatial inequalities in the housing market. (3) All the factors are bifactor-enhanced or non-linearly enhanced in relationships between every pair, and they are classified into three categories of high, medium, and low according to the mean of interacting forces; in particular, the factors of GDP, expenditure, permanent resident population, number of medical beds, and full-time equivalent of R&D personnel are in a stronger interaction with other factors. (4) Based on housing supply, demand, price, and their coordination, 31 provinces are classified into four types of policy zones, and the driving mechanisms of spatial inequalities in the housing market are further applied to put forward suggestions on policy design, which provides useful references for China and other countries to deal with housing spatial inequality.

Urbanization, Industrialization and Inequalities in Africa: does threshold matter?

This paper examines the impact of urbanization and industrialization on observed inequalities in a sample of 48 African countries. We specify and estimate a panel data model using the Generalized Method of Moments-System (GMM-S) over the period 1980-2016 along the different dimensions of inequality. Our results show that urbanization increases income, environmental and housing inequalities in Africa, while industrialization reduces them. Our results remain robust with the use of Panel Smooth Transition Regression Model (PSTR) and Panel Transition Regression Model (PTR). We suggest taking into account the disparities identified in the inclusive urbanization and industrialization policies of African cities.

COVID-19 Pandemic Worsening Gender Inequalities for Women and Girls in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Pandemics such as COVID-19 have often resulted in international, national and sub-regional crises, with considerable inequities across many societies. With the already existing structural and socio-economic inequalities in sub-Saharan Africa, the stay-at-home orders, lockdowns, and shutdowns across the sub-regional states could worsen and have a tremendous impact on vulnerable groups. Numerous studies across a variety of contexts have well-documented gender, and cultures on varied health outcomes. However, these have not been contextualized in sub-Saharan Africa in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This mini review discusses the ways by which COVID-19 has impacted the lives of girls and women across sub-Saharan Africa and the strategies that can help mitigate these challenges. The mini review specifically shares light on a wide array of dimensions where the inequities exist. These include the disproportionate areas affected by COVID-19; household inequities; educational inequalities; work/employment inequalities; disparities related to healthcare, sexual and reproductive health as well as housing inequities. Conclusively, the review accentuates the need for sub-Saharan African countries to adopt low-cost preventive measures such as discouraging mass gatherings (e.g., local community gatherings), and face masking with non-medical cloth like masks for the local populace as these are crucial in managing the spread of the virus among disproportionate women population. For localities with limited access to handwashing facilities, alternative strategies like alcohol-based hand rub solutions could be deployed. The complex interrelated disparities require a broad set of policy actions to lessen the current burden faced by many women in sub-Saharan Africa.