Constructing a housing precariousness measure for Europe

There are concerns that the recovery from the Great Recession in Europe has left growing numbers of people facing precarious housing situations. Yet, to our knowledge, there is no comparative measure of housing precariousness in contrast to an extensive body of work on labour market precariousness....

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of European social policy Vol. 29; no. 1; pp. 13 - 28
Main Authors Clair, Amy, Reeves, Aaron, McKee, Martin, Stuckler, David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.02.2019
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Access
Affordability
Comparative studies
Educational attainment
Health care policy
Health research
Housing
Insecure
Labor market
Living conditions
Low income groups
Polls & surveys
Quality of care
Recessions
Rehabilitation
Surveillance
Unemployed people
Europe
Housing
Europe
comparative
precariousness
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Summary:There are concerns that the recovery from the Great Recession in Europe has left growing numbers of people facing precarious housing situations. Yet, to our knowledge, there is no comparative measure of housing precariousness in contrast to an extensive body of work on labour market precariousness. Here, we draw on a comparative survey of 31 European countries from the 2012 wave of European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions to develop a novel housing precariousness measure. We integrate four dimensions of housing precariousness: security, affordability, quality and access to services, into a scale ranging from 0 (not at all precarious) to 4 (most precarious). Over half of the European population report at least one element of housing precariousness; 14.7  percent report two dimensions and 2.8  percent three or more (equivalent to ~15  million people). Eastern European and small island nations have relatively greater precariousness scores. Worse precariousness tends to be more severe among the young, unemployed, single and those with low educational attainment or who live in rented homes and is associated with poor self-reported health. Future research is needed to strengthen surveillance of housing precariousness as well as to understand what policies and programmes can help alleviate it.
ISSN:0958-9287
1461-7269
DOI:10.1177/0958928718768334