"You don't know which housing you'll go to next":: Precarity and tenants' experience of the Icelandic housing market

The term precarity has been increasingly used abroad in recent years, e.g. to refer to individualsʼ vulnerable position on the rental market. The concept contextually highlights how social structures make some individuals vulnerable and underlines the importance of contextualizing their experiences...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mixa, Már Wolfgang, Loftsdóttir, Kristín, Rúnarsdóttir, Anna Lísa
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:Icelandic
Published: School of Social Sciences 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/tf/article/view/3879
Description
Summary:The term precarity has been increasingly used abroad in recent years, e.g. to refer to individualsʼ vulnerable position on the rental market. The concept contextually highlights how social structures make some individuals vulnerable and underlines the importance of contextualizing their experiences broadly. The article discusses the Icelandic rental market and the conceptʼs usefulness for understanding whether and how the development of the rental market in recent years creates precarious conditions for tenants. The study combines quantitative and qualitative data, i.e. statistical information on the scope and state of the rental market, and tenantsʼ experiences, collected through interviews in 2020. The interviewees were both Icelanders and people of foreign origin living in Iceland. A private housing policy has historically characterized the Icelandic housing market, and the position of renters is often precarious in many respects. Hugtakið tvísýnleiki (e. precarity) hefur á síðustu árum verið notað í auknum mæli erlendis, m.a. til að lýsa viðkvæmri stöðu einstaklinga á leigumarkaði. Í slíku samhengi dregur hugtakið fram hvernig formgerðir samfélagsins gera stöðu sumra einstaklinga viðkvæma og undirstrikar mikilvægi þess að setja reynslu þeirra í vítt samhengi. Þessi grein fjallar um íslenskan leigumarkað og gagnsemi hugtaksins til þess að skýra hvort og hvernig uppbygging leigumarkaðarins síðastliðin ár skapar leigj[1]endum aðstæður sem einkennast oft af óöryggi. Teflt er saman megindlegum og eigindlegum gögnum, þ.e. tölfræðiupplýsingum um umfang og ástand leigumarkaðarins, sem og reynslusögum leigjenda sem safnað var með viðtölum árið 2020. Viðmælendur voru bæði Íslendingar og einstaklingar af erlendum uppruna búsettir á Íslandi. Bent er á að séreignastefna hefur löngum einkennt hérlendan húnæðismarkað og staða leigjenda er oft á margan hátt tvísýn.