Changes in the Lifestyle of Malaysian Population and its Effect on Housing

CHANGES IN THE LIFESTYLE OF MALAYSIAN POPULATION AND ITS EFFECT ON HOUSING DEMAND : A FOCUS ON MULTIGENERATIONAL HOUSEHOLDS

 

 Ainoriza Mohd Aini * Wan Nor Azriyati Wan Abd Aziz, Zairul Nisham Musa, Peter Aning Tedong, and Abdul Ghani Sarip

Centre for Sustainable Urban and Regional Real Estate (SUPRE)

Faculty of Built Envionment, University of Malaya

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Previous research on housing in Malaysia has been focusing mainly on affordable housing and more recently on meeting the needs of elderly community. Given the lack of work on the demographic shift and changes in lifestyle in Malaysia, it is timely to consider how this trend will impact on housing preferences and demand in the future. Particularly, it is also important to discuss policy implications of this significant demographic shift with consideration of the implications of emerging types of families including multi-generational households or sandwich generation and at the same time as our population is ageing. This research explores the nature of multigenerational households in Malaysia and discusses the potential of this segment to the housing development industry. In-depth interviews of people living in multigenerational households were conducted to explore the motivation and challenges of living in a multigenerational household and how this influence their housing outcomes. Interviews were conducted at home allowing interviewees to readily point to positive and negative features of the living arrangements. The research concludes with a discussion on whether this is a specific market for the housing industry to consider and several policy intervention recommendations to meet the demand of the multigenerational households.

Keywords : Housing, Multigenerational Households, Household formation, Housing culture, Malaysia