An investigation of overcrowding among the UK households

• Published in: Eastern journal of European studies Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 5 - 24
• Main Authors: RAO, Sandeep, CHOU, Chia-Hao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Iasi Editura Universităţii »Alexandru Ioan Cuza« din Iaşi 01.06.2019; The Publishing House of the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi; Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi - CES - EJES; Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi
• Subjects: Economy; Housing; linear probability model; Micro-Economics; overcrowding; Public Finances; Socio-Economic Research; United Kingdom > UK; housing; overcrowding; linear probability model
• ISSN: 2068-651X; 2068-6633

Despite being a major economic power, the UK has been facing several social issues especially with respect to housing its population. The UK law on housing defines the minimum standards of the housing structure and the number of people occupying a given housing space. In spite of these legal requirements, the census data of housing shows that there is a steady increase in issues of adequate housing for the population and that the overcrowding in UK dwellings is a very common problem. This paper identifies various factors that determine the ‘space’ dimension of overcrowding in the UK housing market. We find that the ‘space’ dimension of overcrowding in the UK housing market as indicated by ‘the total number of bedrooms households’ is significantly related to the joint income of the household personals and tenure type, whereas factors like ‘age under sixteen’ and ‘rurality’ are not significant. We use a linear probability (regression) model for discrete dependent variables with multiple responses to test the hypotheses and provide robust estimations.