Abstract
This thesis explores the housing experiences of 30-somethings in Seoul, South Korea, using the ‘housing pathways’ framework for understanding how young Koreans respond to housing deprivations and navigate housing practices across their life-course. The work analyses their housing deprivations, limited housing opportunities and housing pathways in the increasingly uncertain socio-economic context of precarious housing and labour markets.Findings were based on a case study of three dimensions of housing disadvantage that young Koreans widely encountered – housing affordability, poor housing quality and stagnated departure from the parental home. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 19 men and 13 women in their 30s. The interview data were analysed using thematic analysis.
This thesis contributes to empirical and theoretical knowledge on housing choice and deprivation of young people. The finding documents their experiences associated with inadequate, unsafe and insecure housing over the life-course. It also reveals a lack of a sense of home despite individual home-making practice. Moreover, it identifies the complex decision-making on housing required of young Koreans due to a combination of economic factors, social norms, and individual experiences and perceptions. Their housing choices were also determined by gender or the stage of their life-course. The thesis analyses four types of housing pathway based on young adults’ evolving housing qualities and tenures. Marriage was a significant event for entering the ‘progressive housing pathway’, which delays in life-course were associated with the ‘constrained housing pathway’. The ‘chaotic housing pathway’ was related to homelessness and the ‘deferred pathway’ to returning to parental housing and co-residence.
In conclusion, the thesis challenges the assumption of age as a marker for housing policies. Given increasingly diversified life-courses of young adults, age-based criteria would continue to marginalise their access to housing policy and delivery.
| Date of Award | 21 Jun 2022 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Misa Izuhara (Supervisor) & Eldin Fahmy (Supervisor) |