Degrees of housing precariousness – a latent class analysis of housing problems in Europe

Housing precariousness poses a severe risk to the most disadvantaged but often remains invisible in aggregate statistics. To identify its extent and degree, we explore the stacking of specific combinations of housing problems, i.e. how eight indicators co-vary in different ways across countries and disadvantaged groups. A Latent Class Analysis on multiple waves of EU-SILC (2010-2023) identifies three ‘degrees’ of housing precariousness ranging from less to more severe concentrations of housing problems: quality-, cost-, and security-precariousness. Housing precariousness is generally more prevalent in Eastern- and Southern-Europe, but where it does occur in North-Western-Europe, it is of a more severe degree. Moreover, while our results corroborate concerns about housing precariousness in the market-rent sector, housing precariousness is equally severe in the reduced-rent sector. Our typology points to the concentration of disadvantaged groups as well as frequent quality concerns in cost-rent housing in the UK, Ireland, France and Belgium, pertaining to the ‘residual’ status of this tenure.