Housing mobility, social positions and integration groups

Abstract

In our study, we have examined the housing mobility patterns of Hungarian integration groups – defined on the basis of the Centre for Social Sciences’ 2015 Social Integration Survey – based on a segment of the housing paths, i.e. the characteristics of current and previous housing. As a starting point, we present the main determinants of housing mobility, then some relevant characteristics of the Hungarian housing system. Using the data of the Centre’s 2015 Social Integration Survey, we explore the connection between social integration and the typical patterns of the housing path segments. Our results, in harmony with the life cycle theory of housing mobility, confirm the decisive role of demographic factors, especially age and marital status. At the same time the results suggest that, in addition to the socio-demographic variables, social position has an impact on housing paths, including mobility within the rental sector and the prospects of exit to the homeownership sector. Groups in radically divergent social positions follow different housing paths: while the rental sector typically does not appear in the housing path of people belonging to the ’well-connected, politically active’ social integration group, the proportion of people moving within the rental sector is above average among individuals in the ’nonintegrated excluded’ and ’poorly integrated’ social integration groups.