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Towards a Strategic Approach to Housing Behaviour: A Study of Young People's Housing Strategies in South-East England

Pickvance, Chris, Pickvance, Katy (1994) Towards a Strategic Approach to Housing Behaviour: A Study of Young People's Housing Strategies in South-East England. Sociology-the Journal of the British Sociological Association, 28 (3). pp. 657-677. ISSN 0038-0385. (doi:10.1177/0038038594028003002) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:19944)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038038594028003002

Abstract

A model is advanced of young people's housing behaviour as resulting from strategies regarding household type, child-bearing, work, expenditure and family help, which in turn are partly a response to housing constraints. The model is applied to a sample of 724 young people in South-East England and it is shown that between 3 per cent and 34 per cent of young people had adopted particular strategies in the previous year in response to housing constraints. Strategic behaviour was not limited to any single social category, but the first four types of strategy were more likely among households with manual or part-time workers; younger, unmarried people were more likely to put up with awkward household arrangements; and older, married people and owner-occupiers were more likely to adopt expenditure-related strategies and to defer having children. This approach rejects the view that housing decisions are made by pre-existing households with given characteristics. Rather, household structure and resource levels result from strategies, and housing decisions involve trade-offs between aspirations and the acceptance of sacrifice and dependency - features which are ignored by measures of 'ability to pay' such as affordability.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1177/0038038594028003002
Uncontrolled keywords: young people, household, housing, strategy, sacrifice, affordability
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: O.O. Odanye
Date Deposited: 16 Jun 2009 03:25 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:58 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/19944 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Pickvance, Chris.

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