Places to Live: A Study of Housing Equity in Sweden
2024 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesisAlternative title
Bostadsläget : Jämlikheter och möjligheter på den svenska bostadsmarknaden (Swedish)
Abstract [en]
This thesis explores the equity of housing choice sets available in Sweden and the influence of the financial capabilities of households on these choice sets. Through a comprehensive study incorporating data from all of Sweden, this research provides a detailed analysis of the disparities in housing affordability across different economic strata.The primary objective is to understand how the financial power of households dictates the choice set available to them. Synthesizing a dataset spanning all of Sweden and employing clustering techniques, the study categorizes housing locations into clusters reflecting their accessibility to transport and service, their sociodemographic composition, morphology, and housing attributes. This classification is combined with a model of locations’ living costs that integrates transport and housing cost incurred by a household after buying a house or flat. The combination of the models are analysed to provide knowledge on implications of socio-economic divisions in urban planning. By creating origin-destination pairs between locations with restrictions on cost of living as well as location qualities, the study also analyses choice sets for different areas based on both financial power and desired qualities.Findings indicate that rural areas generally offer more affordable living options compared to urban centres, restricting low-income households primarily to peripheral or less developed regions. Choice sets are smaller in central areas due to a small supply of highly connected urban locations while households in less central locations seem more limited by finances than housing availability to improve their circumstances.These spatial distributions underscore a pronounced socio-economic divide, where higher-income households enjoy broader housing choices, including central and well-developed urban zones that offer better amenities and connectivity. The results of this thesis highlight perpetuation effects of social segregation, suggesting that policy intervention might be necessary to break the trend.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2024.
Series
TRITA-ABE-MBT ; 25174
Keywords [en]
Sweden, clustering, housing, built environment, accessibility, morphology, socioeconomic factors, equity, housing choice
National Category
Music
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-364278OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-364278DiVA, id: diva2:1965909
External cooperation
Spacescape AB
Presentation
2024-12-04, 00:00
Supervisors
Examiners
2025-06-092025-06-092025-06-09Bibliographically approved