Housing Inequality Research Articles

Do inequalities exist in housing and working conditions among local and migrant industrial workers in Vietnam? Results from a multi-site survey

BackgroundWhile internal migrants in Vietnam have been a key driving force in the country's rapid economic development, they also face many vulnerabilities. Our study seeks to explore possible inequalities in housing and working conditions between local and internal migrant industrial workers in Vietnam. MethodsCross-sectional surveys were conducted with 1200 industrial workers in four regions of Vietnam. Dependent variables included housing conditions (satisfaction with convenience of accommodation, sanitation and water of accommodation, and accommodation in general) and working conditions (satisfaction with income, monthly income, number of hazardous working conditions, and work-related stress measured through the modified Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire). The primary independent variable is migrant status. Covariates included region, gender, education, marital status, accommodation status, living arrangements, industry, age, monthly income, experience, and working hours. ResultsOf the sample, 24.7% (n = 296) were migrants. Overall, no differences were found regarding housing conditions by migrant status. In adjusted regression models, migrants reported higher numbers of hazardous working conditions (β = 0.07, 95 %CI = 0.01–0.13, p = 0.01) and higher monthly income (β = 0.05, 95 %CI = 0.01–0.09, p = 0.02). DiscussionRecent state-level changes in the Vietnamese household registration system may explain the lack of differences in housing conditions by migrant status. Future research should utilize longitudinal designs to examine impacts over time of state policy on migrants’ housing conditions as well as well-being. Regarding working conditions, findings highlight the need for stronger social protection policy and better information channels on occupational health and safety for migrants. Further research, including qualitative studies, is needed to explore why migrants face more hazardous working conditions.

The Role of Community-Based Organizations in Improving Chronic Care for Safety-Net Populations.

Social determinants of health (SDoH) influence health outcomes and contribute to disparities in chronic disease in vulnerable populations. To inform health system strategies to address SDoH, we conducted a multi-stakeholder qualitative study to capture the multi-level influences on health for those living in socio-economically deprived contexts. Varied qualitative inquiry methods - in-depth interviews, participant-led neighborhood tours, and clinic visit observations - involving a total of 23 participants (10 patients with chronic illnesses in San Francisco neighborhoods with high chronic disease rates, 10 community leaders serving the same neighborhoods, and 3 providers from San Francisco's public health care delivery system). Qualitative analyses were guided by the Chronic Care Model (CCM). Several key themes emerged from this study. First, we enumerated a large array, neighborhood resources such as food pantries, parks/green spaces, and financial assistance services that interact with patients' self-management. Health service providers leveraged these resources to address patients' social needs but suggested a clear need for expanding this work. Second, analyses uncovered multiple essential mechanisms by which community-based organizations (CBOs) provided and navigated among many neighborhood health resources, including social support and culturally aligned knowledge. Finally, many examples of how structural issues such as institutional racism, transportation, and housing inequities are intertwined with health and social service delivery were elucidated. The results contribute new evidence toward the community domain of the CCM. Health care systems must intentionally partner with CBOs to address SDoH and improve community resources for chronic care management, and directly address structural issues to make progress.

Identifying Urban Poverty Using High-Resolution Satellite Imagery and Machine Learning Approaches: Implications for Housing Inequality

Enriching Asian perspectives on the rapid identification of urban poverty and its implications for housing inequality, this paper contributes empirical evidence about the utility of image features derived from high-resolution satellite imagery and machine learning approaches for identifying urban poverty in China at the community level. For the case of the Jiangxia District and Huangpi District of Wuhan, image features, including perimeter, line segment detector (LSD), Hough transform, gray-level cooccurrence matrix (GLCM), histogram of oriented gradients (HoG), and local binary patterns (LBP), are calculated, and four machine learning approaches and 25 variables are applied to identify urban poverty and relatively important variables. The results show that image features and machine learning approaches can be used to identify urban poverty with the best model performance with a coefficient of determination, R2, of 0.5341 and 0.5324 for Jiangxia and Huangpi, respectively, although some differences exist among the approaches and study areas. The importance of each variable differs for each approach and study area; however, the relatively important variables are similar. In particular, four variables achieved relatively satisfactory prediction results for all models and presented obvious differences in varying communities with different poverty levels. Housing inequality within low-income neighborhoods, which is a response to gaps in wealth, income, and housing affordability among social groups, is an important manifestation of urban poverty. Policy makers can implement these findings to rapidly identify urban poverty, and the findings have potential applications for addressing housing inequality and proving the rationality of urban planning for building a sustainable society.

‘Trapped’, ‘anxious’ and ‘traumatised’: COVID-19 intensified the impact of housing inequality on Australians’ mental health

Increased time spent at home during COVID-19 exposed inequities in Australian housing quality and availability. Many Australians lack sufficient space to carry out activities shifted to their homes and the financial downturn rapidly increased stress around housing affordability. Research demonstrates living in unaffordable or poor-quality housing can negatively impact residents’ mental health. This study explores the mechanisms through which housing moderates COVID-19’s impact on mental health by analysing 2,065 Australians surveyed in mid-to-late 2020. Hierarchical linear regressions were used to examine associations between housing circumstances, neighbourhood belonging and mental-health outcomes (loneliness, depression, and anxiety), adjusted for demographics. Open-ended responses were analysed using thematic analysis and critical-realist epistemology. Feeling ‘trapped’ and ‘helpless’ because of insecure tenure or lack of money to improve housing conditions reduced participants’ sense of control. Inadequate space and noise adversely impacted participants’ well-being. Participants’ housing context – including amenities, natural spaces, and social connections – strongly impacted their emotional experiences. Safe, secure, and suitable housing is a known determinant of safety and physical health; this study suggests it is also a critical factor for Australians’ mental health. To improve mental health among the vulnerably-housed, future housing policy should not compromise on housing affordability, quality, space and access to nearby amenities.

Editorial on ‘Tenants organizing: precarization and resistance’

In 2019 we organized a conference casting light on the housing crisis and especially on the historical and contemporary organization of tenants to contest housing inequalities. By placing housing struggles and tenants’ organization at the centre of the debate we aimed at exposing and politicizing current capitalist development and, hopefully, at proposing a different view of how housing can be organized and imagined by discussing how resistance can be used, with what effects and how it can be connected to other struggles. This special issue is a result of this conference dealing with tenants’ organization in different contexts examining how tenants organize(d), why and what could be learned from it. In this introducing text we give an overview of this field of research by asking why tenants’ mobilizations are important to study, what is still under-studied in the field and which perspectives are important to raise in future research.

The new housing precariat: experiences of precarious housing in Malmö, Sweden

Precarious housing research has become increasingly relevant to previous welfare housing contexts, such as Sweden. In the 1990s, Swedish housing became gradually market-oriented, which induced a shortage of affordable rental housing and increased housing costs in all major cities. This article presents the results from interviews with individuals about their experiences of the unequal housing market in the city of Malmö, Sweden. The article furthers knowledge of the lived experience of housing precariousness in the Global North. The narratives from the housing precariat are analysed through the lens of housing inequalities, and the analysis theoretically adds to ‘research on critical geography of precarity. The article aims to illustrate the consequences of the shift from a general welfare approach of housing to an individualized and neoliberal housing market. In particular, this article adds insights on the gendered and racialized aspects that affect housing precariousness.

A Geospatial Analysis of Temporary Housing Inequality among Socially Marginalized and Privileged Groups in India

AbstractA major obstruction of Indian society to establish equality, balanced growth and development is regional and social group‐wise inequality in availing even basic human needs as well as housing conditions. The present study focuses on mapping the nationwide spatial disparity in the distribution and inequality of temporary housing among socially marginalized and privileged groups, along with three administrative hierarchies: National–State–District. Varieties of measures (Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient, correlation, and quadrant analysis) have been employed for this study. The results indicate inequality in the spatial distribution of serviceable and non‐serviceable temporary housing in India, along with a geospatial disparity in the ownership of temporary housing among different social groups. A number of districts in Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jammu Kashmir, and Tamil Nadu have shown a higher proportion of temporary housing along with more ownership among socially marginalized groups. Besides this, districts from Bihar, Orissa, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Tripura have higher proportion of non‐serviceable temporary housing than the national average, along with more ownership among marginalized groups. The categorization of the states and districts based on social group‐wise inequality in the ownership and the concentration of temporary housing is significant for improving of the policies and initiatives taken by the Government to arrange safe, affordable, adequate, and sustainable housing for all.

Housing transitions of Taiwanese young adults: intersections of the parental home and housing pathways

In the global context, studies have found that young adults are facing increasing difficulties in accessing homeownership and delaying home-leaving. While the Western literature on housing circumstances among younger generations indicates the importance of family support, in an East Asian context, the family is particularly intertwined with housing arrangements given the cultural heritage of filial piety. To elucidate the dynamics of housing transitions, this paper adopted a holistic approach and used sequence analysis to establish distinct housing pathways in a less studied social context, Taiwan. Drawing on data from the Panel Study of Family Dynamics, apart from providing empirical evidence on the emergence of the private rented path and a decline in homeownership associated with housing inequality, this paper explored the diverse housing pathways associated with the principal platform of family support, i.e. the parental home, and found that it may function as both a familisation instrument for young adults seeking independence and negotiating leverage sustaining the filial reciprocity.

Market-Based Housing Reforms and the Residualization of Public Housing: The Experience of Lodz, Poland

Housing inequality is one of the central topics in urban studies, and in the social sciences more broadly. It is also one of the most significant and visible aspects of socioeconomic inequality. Over the last three decades, the process of housing commodification has accelerated across western societies and, consequently, the public housing sector has contracted and become more closely associated with the poorest sections of societies in many cities. Over the same period, the political changes in Central and Eastern Europe have contributed to the dismantling and monetizing of state housing sectors at the forefront of broader social and economic transformations. Unfortunately, most recent studies on housing commodification and inequalities in Europe are confined to the national scale. The aim of this article is to detail the linkages between the position and functioning of public housing in Lodz (Poland) and the evolving socioeconomic profile of individuals and households that rely on public housing. This study relies on microdata (statistical information on individuals and households) from two national Polish censuses (1978 and 2002) and from household budget surveys (2003–2013). The main finding of our study is that ‘residualization’ is present in the public housing stock in Lodz and that the process gained momentum in the first decade of the 2000s.

The Effect of Housing Quality on Self-Reported Health Status in Cameroon

Housing and health nexus has become a widely area of concern among many researchers. This study concentrates on housing quality and self-reported health status in Cameroon. The two concepts are inextricably intertwined. Housing quality is an essential social determinant of health but in Cameroon it tends to be a neglected site for public health action. Housing conditions play a major role in the health status of the individual and a wide variety of housing features have been reported to influence the physical, social, economic, healthy living and well-being of occupants. This study uses the 2014 Cameroon Household Consumption Survey (CHCS 4, 2014) from the National Institute of Statistics. This dataset is built from a survey study on 46,090 households. The method of data analysis employed is the ordered logistic regression given that self-reported health status is an ordered dependent variable. The respondents were asked to declare their state of health through a Linkert scale question-whether it is very good, good, bad and very bad. The 38 housing components contained in this data are computed in to an index with the use of the multiple correspondence analysis and a housing quality normalized score constituted as the dependent variable. The Analytical tool used for objective one is the simple Multiple Regression Analysis. The results indicate that most of the housing components have a significant negative impact on housing quality. This is an indication of poor housing of most low-income earners in Cameroon. Objective two Results of the ordered logistic regression technique indicate that an improvement in the housing quality of household members will create a likelihood of their health having a 1% significant change from a lower health category to a higher health category by 27%. In other words, high standard housing condition guarantees protection against communicable diseases, protection against injury, poisoning, and chronic diseases, and reduce psychological and social stress to a minimum. This study recommends that the local governments should provide a variety of housing alternatives with regards to tenancy and payment, such as short-term rental, long-term lease, cohousing, and financed purchase. This will help remedy the problem of availability and affordability thus curbing the problem of housing inequality in Cameroon. Secondly, the government could ensure a free access to medical facilities. If the majority of the population have sponsored health expenses from the government, this will curb even the health inequalities among the poor and non-poor. Keywords: Housing quality, Environmental housing components, Internal housing Components, Physical Housing indicators, Self-Reported Health Status DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-10-02 Publication date: May 31 st 2021

Housing challenges, mid-sized cities and the COVID-19 pandemic

This article examines key housing challenges in mid-sized cities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Two questions guide our critical reflection: understanding to what extent the pandemic represents new challenges and what planners can do to respond to them? We use the example of the Region of Waterloo, situated 100km west of Toronto and one of Canada’s fastest growing urban areas. Waterloo has many similar characteristics to other mid-sized cities within commuting distance of large urban regions. In this article, we focus on two of the biggest (and inter-related) housing issues: inward migration from the Toronto Region and growing unaffordability. Both these challenges long-predate the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are early indicators that they are accelerating because of it. By rooting the challenges of the pandemic within longer trends and trajectories, our critical reflection suggests that many solutions that have long been understood to address housing inequalities are still important during the pandemic. Rather than devising new solutions, we argue that the pandemic requires implementing ideas called upon for years by researchers and advocates and more proactive planning to address market deficiencies.

The affective politics of policy making spaces: Gendered and racial embodiments of neoliberal deservingness and power in a city council meeting

Bringing together feminist works on affect, neoliberalism, and the racial dimensions of dependency discourse, this paper discusses affective politics in policy making spaces by examining a Durham (North Carolina, USA) City Council meeting. We focus on a 2017 Housing Needs Hearing where bodily gestures and speech acts were crucial parts of emotional interactions that defined, maintained, and challenged subject positions and power structures. We argue that embedded within legacies of racial and gender inequality, neoliberal sensibilities work through embodied emotional performances that impact policy conversations. Our analysis reveals how, despite progressive aspirations and accomplishments in Durham, the meeting's extractive set up perpetuates inequities by positioning those seeking assistance to prove their worth through a contradictory performance of desperation and self-actualization while enabling supporters of housing affordability, including city officials, to adopt the role of caring advocates. We find that a performance of pain and the rhetorical proof of self-responsibility opens up potential access to affordable housing and in doing so reveals both the limits and impact of a broken housing system. We thus extend analysis of the neoliberal condition of US housing inequality by deepening understanding of how neoliberal deservingness is embodied and shapes racialized, classed, and gendered subject positions.

Cracks in the well-plastered façade of the Nordic model: reflections on inequalities in housing and mobility in (post-)coronavirus pandemic Sweden

ABSTRACT In this paper, Sweden’s situation in and response to the COVID-19 pandemic is discussed. Through examples of overcrowding and public transport, we argue that the pandemic has revealed, and risks reaffirming, existing aged, gendered, ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities in the housing market, and in relation to mobility and transport. The paper seeks to explore how the large scale and widespread housing segregation in Sweden contributes to the unequal spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, we address how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected and continues to affect the mobility of children, young people and families in unequal transport systems.

The inbetweeners of the housing markets – young adults facing housing inequality in Malmö, Sweden

Throughout Europe, reports of problematic housing situations for young adults have increasingly emerged during the last decades. This paper explores housing experiences among young adults living in a disadvantaged area of Malmö, Sweden, taking the concept of housing inequality as its point of departure. The results suggest how young adults become stuck in between a number of parallel housing markets, leaving them no choice other than the illegal rental market – characterized by steep rents, insecure conditions and precarious quality. The paper advances a multidimensional understanding of housing inequality, as the limited access and poor quality of housing that young adults experience reproduces inequality in a broader sense: It influences potential wealth accumulation, the possibility to lead independent lives, the access to work and education, and thereby, the young adults’ health and well-being.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on health inequalities and mental health: effective public policies

The aim of this article is to examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on health inequalities and mental disorders and to analyse the most effective public policies in containing them. COVID-19, in addition to causing the worst health crisis since World War II, has generated a severe economic recession and a rise in unemployment. The poorer socioeconomic classes have been most affected by infections and deaths caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus due to inequalities in working, housing and area of ​​residence conditions, psychosocial factors, and unequal access to health care. The pandemic crisis, in addition to causing psychiatric and neurological problems in people who have been hospitalized, appears to have increased the risk of psychological problems through various mechanisms such as social distancing, loss of a loved one, unemployment, and economic difficulties. In many countries, however, there was no significant increase in suicides in 2020 and there have even been decreasing temporal trends. It is possible that the crisis, in addition to creating stress and social isolation, may have promoted reciprocity, interpersonal help, and greater motivation to take care of one's health.The most effective policies in reducing COVID-19 mortality have the potential to limit the most adverse effects of the pandemic on health inequalities and mental health. Thanks to vigorous preventive interventions on the territory, based on testing, tracing, isolating, timely, countries who managed best the pandemic avoided prolonged and repeated lockdowns, protected public health and the economy. However, more vigorous social protection measures are needed in favour of those populations most affected by the health crisis and its socioeconomic effects. This pandemic offers the opportunity to learn lessons on the protection of public health and stress the need to adopt a syndemic model oriented towards prevention.

Environmental Racism and the Contamination of Black Lives: A Literature Review

Exclusionary housing policies concentrate housing inequities, disproportionately exposing Black communities to environmental pollutants, and isolating them from essential health resources (Dimick et al. 2013). For this study, a literature review was conducted to explore how environmental racism has contaminated Black lives and to understand the policy failures that have perpetuated these inequities. Using case study methodology, this paper highlights three specific events to illustrate the contamination of Black lives: toxic wells in Dickinson County, Tennessee; coke plants in North Birmingham, Alabama; and the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The central policy failures in these cases were delayed response, misinformation, weak enforcement of regulations, and inadequate solutions provided by environmental health officials. Future research should focus on the intersection of environmental hazards, community trust, and the effectiveness of prevention strategies in Black communities. Environmental health officials should focus on transparency, accountability, and equal protection for all lives.

A Behavioural Investigation of the Easterlin Paradox in Housing Markets

Using models from the happiness and the behavioural economics literature, we develop an analytical framework to investigate the relationship between housing wealth and residential satisfaction. Two hypotheses, i.e., social comparison and adaptation, are tested by using household panel survey data from the UK. We find support to the social comparison hypothesis. Individual’s asymmetric response to changes in housing wealth distribution, i.e., loss aversion experienced by the worse-off group, could offset the gain from an increase in housing wealth at the aggregate level. As a result, housing wealth growth does not necessarily improve residential satisfaction for the society as a whole if it leads to housing wealth inequality. Although our empirical evidence is from the UK, regional disparity of housing prices is commonplace in many parts of the world. Our findings are particularly relevant to developing countries, where economic growth is often accompanied by widening income gap and rising wealth inequality. Policymakers should be mindful about the far-reaching effect of housing wealth inequality. Given the significant impact of housing wealth distribution on residential satisfaction, and ultimately people’s subjective well-being, it is important to tackle inequality in housing markets.

Measuring local, salient economic inequality in the UK

Nascent research across academic disciplines finds that local economic inequality is an important driver of attitudes and behaviour. However, given a lack of granular data on income and wealth in the UK, measuring local economic inequality has been impossible. I address this measurement gap by exploiting data on housing values for over 26.6 million addresses -- nearly the universe of residential properties in the UK -- producing a fine-grained measure of local inequality for the first time. Across two surveys, I demonstrate that housing inequality is substantively associated with perceptions of income inequality, suggesting that housing value inequality is salient to individuals. Finally, I examine patterns of inequality from the city down to the neighbourhood-level, revealing some striking facts: first, there is far larger variation in inequality at the neighbourhood-level than at the level of cities and above, pointing to varied experiences and encounters with inequality that is obscured by taking a macro focus. Second, inequality has declined at the local level on average from 1999 to 2019.

Crime, Inequality and Subsidized Housing: Evidence from South Africa

We study the relationship between housing inequality and crime in South Africa. We create a novel panel dataset combining information on crimes at the police station level with census data. We find that housing inequality explains a significant share of the variation in both property and violent crimes, net of spillover effects, time and district fixed effects. An increase of one standard deviation in housing inequality explains between 9 and 13 percent of crime increases. Additionally, we show that a prominent post-apartheid housing program for low-income South Africans led to a reduction in inequality and a decline in violent crimes. Together, these findings suggest the important role that equality in housing conditions can play in the reduction of crime in an emerging economy context.

‘Super-Long-Term Public Mortgages’ as a Vehicle for Addressing Housing Inequality: A Korean Solution for Millennials

Homeownership and housing price appreciation are often framed as the real culprits behind yawning wealth inequality, which reduces social mobility and exposes non-homeowning millennials to structural inequality. In response, governments have introduced various homeownership policies, including long-term mortgages. This paper highlights South Korea’s public mortgages with very long terms of 40 years or more as one potential vehicle for addressing housing inequality. Rather than performing an econometric analysis on a policy that will not materialize until late 2021, the paper focuses on conducting a comprehensive literature review covering various national contexts. Next, the paper discusses the economic and financial implications of Korea’s ‘super-long-term public mortgages.’ To conclude, the paper suggests several financing solutions, ranging from a more advanced mortgage-backed securities market to a national fund drawing on public wealth. Through this holistic discussion, the paper hopes to trigger a vibrant discourse on policies to address housing inequality for young adults.