“What has become a burden in rental housing? Workplace location, neighbourhood and housing environment on household rental burden”

Abstract

The escalating severity of housing affordability issues has compelled households to make compromises across various life domains in order to maintain a manageable rental burden. However, the dynamics between household factors and rental burden have not been thoroughly explored, and it remains unclear which factors most significantly affect rental burden, particularly among those experiencing disproportionately high burdens. This study employs a multi-level model using a census sample dataset (n = 20047) and geospatial data from Hong Kong to explore the effects of workplace location, neighbourhood and housing environment on rental burden. The analysis compares these effects across households with varying levels of rental burden. This study reveals that workplace location, housing features, and neighbourhood environments have differentiated impacts on rental burdens among households in a high-rent, dense urban context. The results uncover a novel positive association between remote working and rental burden among high-burden households—contrasting with a negative association for their lower-burden counterparts—highlighting an emerging dynamic in housing affordability shaped by evolving remote work patterns. Additionally, the findings show that high-burden households lack flexibility to accommodate additional dependents, exposing a “housing squeeze” that constrains family formation and intergenerational care. Mobility and connectivity are found to be vital for households under financial strain, suggesting that investments in transportation infrastructure could help mitigate some affordability pressures by broadening access to jobs and services.