Bolig og levekår i Norge 2012

This report presents results from a project that NOVA has carried out in collaboration with Fafo on behalf of the Norwegian State Housing Bank. The purpose of the project is to provide new and updated knowledge about developments that may affect the Norwegian housing market in the coming years. The analyses in this report are based primarily on the survey EU- SILC 2012, with attached register data from 2011. EU-SILC 2012 contains a module with questions about housing conditions. In addition, we have used register data on migrant workers' movement between municipalities in Norway, and information from the Population and Housing Census 2011. The report can be read as an update of previous reviews of the EU-SILC surveys in Norway with additional modules on housing conditions (1997, 2001, 2004 and 2007), but we also present new topics and analysis. We represent the results as an anthology with independent chapters. The introductory chapter provides a context for the findings in the rest of the report, by presenting figures for the number of dwellings in Norway, some aspects of housing policy including the emergence of social housing as a priority in welfare policy, and some figures on population trends. It is emphasized in the chapter that the population in Norway is increasing, much as a result of labour migration. Consequently, the number of occupied dwellings and housing prices increase. At the same time the population ages, which increases the demand for universal access in housing. The theme of the first article is housing standards and accessibility in 2012. A main conclusion from this review is that the housing stock changes slowly, so that the results resemble those from the similar review of EU-SILC 2007. By far the most common type of house in Norway is single dwelling, while just under a quarter of all households live in an apartment or townhouse. There is also stability in housing sizes. Most respondents (58 per cent) live in homes with three to five rooms (the figure in 2007 was 60 per cent). There has been no increase in the number of households living in small homes, just under 20 percent of households live in dwellings with one or two rooms. 7 per cent of Norwegian households are overcrowded by the broadest objective definition, and a clear majority says that their residence has “just the right size”. Moving is far more common among the youngest age groups, and is also common among people with short periods of residence in Norway. This indicates a pattern where young adult move several times before they eventually find a home to grow old in. Relatively few say they are experiencing problems with their housing or immediate neighbourhood. The problem mentioned most often is noise: 12 percent report that they experience noise from road traffic or neighbours while indoors in their own home. The final issue discussed in this chapter is housing conditions for people with disabilities. About a third of all homes have no physical barriers that prevent disabled people from entering, and 38 percent have all rooms located on the entry level. This is a higher proportion than what was found in 2007. In the second article, the topic is housing expenses. High relative housing expenses is defined as housing expenses in excess of 25 percent of total income. Comparison with data from the late 1990s suggests that the proportions experiencing this problem are very stable over time. Young households have high housing expenses, while older households have low housing expenses. Furthermore, it is especially singles and single parents who have high relative housing expenses. We find high relative housing expenses among households living in Oslo and Akershus, compared to the rest of the country. These patterns were also found in 2007. The chapter also presents some figures for indebtedness. We take the recommendation that the debt should not exceed three times the total income as a starting point. We see that the proportion of households with a mortgage of more than 3 times their gross income decreases with age. Among 20 -year-olds more than every fourth household have such debt burdens, while the same is true for just fewer than one in five households among 30 year olds. Article three is about the rental market. Most Norwegians visit the rental market one or more times during their life. The rental market is often used in transitional periods of life, such as in education, periods with temporary employment, and immediately after family breakup. The rental sector is also important for those who do not want to, or for various reasons are unable to, buy their own home. The typical tenant is a young and single person with low incomes. Renting contracts are largely short term. Tenants tend to have short residence time and many have plans to move. The probability of remaining a tenant however increases with increasing time in the rental market. The Norwegian rental market is dominated by private hire, and there are relatively few institutional landlords. This gives the Norwegian rental market an informal character with a lack of transparency, which can make it difficult for vulnerable groups to get a foothold in this market. The informal structure of the rental sector also makes it challenging to implement legal regulations. In the fourth article we look specifically at older households’ housing situation. The elderly are less mobile in the housing market than younger people. Despite this, more than every tenth household where the reference person is 67 years or older changed residence in the last five years before the interview. The proportions that have moved in old age can still be higher, since five years is a relatively short measurement period - especially for the oldest old. Many seniors live in a home that is specially adapted for a household member with disabilities, but there is also a significant proportion who does not live in such housing and who feel they ought to have a special arrangement of the dwelling. This is reported by approximately every tenth household where the reference person is 67 years or older. In this study, we use two definitions of vulnerability in the housing market: (1) Individuals and households who have low income and live in unsuitable dwellings, and (2) those who are disadvantaged by definition 1, or have low incomes and at the same time high relative housing costs. Their situation is the topic of the fifth article. We find that 7 per cent of the respondents are vulnerable by definition 1, while 12 per cent come across as vulnerable if we rely on definition 2. Whichever of these two definitions we rely on, the same groups come across as most likely to be vulnerable: those most at risk are young adults and single parents, and there is also a high percentage of tenants among the vulnerable. In the sixth and final article, we seek to identify mobility patterns among immigrants in Norway. This article uses a different data set, namely registry data on all residents in Norway. We measure moving as change of municipality of residence from one year to another, which means that we only look at the moving patterns of people who have stayed in Norway for at least two consecutive years in the period under investigation. The total number of transfers between municipalities was slightly lower in 2009-2010 than in 2005-2006. This is mainly because Norwegians moved less. Immigrants’ higher proportion of movements, and the fact that the proportion of immigrants had increased in the period, explains why the number of relocations were not further reduced. In 2006, the immigrants were responsible for 16 percent of all relocations, and this percentage increased to 22 percent in 2010. All immigrant groups are more likely to move between municipalities in their first years in Norway. Immigrants from countries in Asia and Africa have the highest propensity to move to Oslo and Akershus, while migrant workers from the European Economic Area also move to other regional centres in Rogaland ( Stavanger), Hordaland (Bergen ) or Sør-Trøndelag (Trondheim). The main results of the articles are summarized in the final chapter. The results are discussed in light of the social changes that are presented in the introductory chapter, and it is pointed out how the results can be seen in the context of policy making. Major changes in the size and composition of the population affect the demand for housing. Which dwellings are available, and the price levels in the housing market, influences the expectations and opportunities individual households have on this market. A central challenge in housing policies is to ascertain to what extent the housing market balances supply and demand in a satisfactory manner so that measures to correct undesirable outcomes may be applied. Analyses of living conditions, including housing conditions, based on surveys such as EU-SILC is an important source of information in this context, but should be complemented and combined with information from other data sources. Surveys often underestimate the number of disadvantaged people in the housing market, and thus provide unreliable information about the processes that lead into, and out of, difficult positions with regard to housing