Trångboddhet : Mellan bostadsstandard och boendemoral

Residential crowding is frequently associated with impoverished segments of the population, often living in distressed neighbourhoods, and with detrimental consequences for crowded households. The aim of this thesis is to apply a sociological and historical perspective on residential crowding by analyzing Swedish governmental texts and quantitative survey data. Politically defined welfare standards, as well as the subjective experience of crowding are analyzed and interpreted through sociological welfare and governmentality theory. The arguments justifying the official governmental standards on residential crowding – first formulated in the mid-1930s – are explored in a discourse analysis. The analysis shows that there is a strong link between what is regarded to be appropriate dwelling space and what is regarded to be morally good housing conditions. In the 1930s and 1940s experts’ decided on what was adequate dwelling space, however in the mid- 1980s experts’ ability to decide on dwelling space was highly questioned. Instead it became an individual responsibility to decide on how to reside. Hence, what constitutes morally good and morally bad dwelling conditions is debated and dispersed on many actors. Two parallel discourses on crowding, a ”gentrified” and a “distressed” are further explored by analyzing the data from a survey study. Subjective as well as objective elements are analyzed by relating socio-economic profiles of the crowded residents in a distressed and a gentrified neighbourhood. Despite income differences within the crowded population, depending on what neighbourhood you live in, the crowded residents in all neighbourhoods experience less freedom regarding their dwelling situation than do non-crowded residents. The least amount of freedom is experienced by those who are crowded both according to the Swedish housing standard and according to a subjective measure of crowding