MISMATCH IN HOUSING FOR THE LOWER-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Since the 1960s, the Singapore Government has been promoting public homeownership for its citizens through the introduction of various policies over the years to encourage homeownership. In the meantime, not much attention was paid to develop the public rental sector and the cheap-end purchased sector to cater to the lower-income households, who were forced to purchase the more expensive bigger HDB flats. Could this lead to a mismatch in public housing choices in later years? Besides examining the profile of the lower-income families and their preferred housing choices to find out if there was a mismatch, this study also looked into their subsidy choices and the implications of government public housing policies over the years. In this study, demographic factors and current living conditions were also found to affect the residents' preference of housing choice. It has been shown that the lowest income households, or those staying in 1-room rental units, would prefer to upgrade as their flats were old and cramped with minimum ventilation. Conversely, lower-income households staying in 3-room purchased flats would prefer to downgrade to meet their financial needs. As for subsidy preference, demographic and housing preference would affect the owner's choice, but current living conditions would not. Although there was evidence that the housing mismatch was found only in a minority of households, reviewing the home consumption needs of this lower-income groups is timely and important in view of the widening income divide