Housing Well-being as Conceived by HongKongers: A Qualitative Study

This study attempts to examine housing well-being per se (i.e. well-being in the housing arena), instead of the relationship between housing and general well-being or the impact of housing on general well-being. It investigates how HongKongers conceive housing well-being rather than examine their degree of housing well-being with regard to a list of indicators that are paternalistically pre-determined. This study adopts qualitative interviews as the data-collection strategy and finds that housing well-being involves the interplay of objective, relative, and subjective standards. Human needs, hopes, and fears underpin the objective housing standards and requirements, while the cultural values, land and built environment, and the economic developmental stage of society “translate” such objective standards into relative local norms. Within the broad local norms, subjective values with individual variations play a part in making specific housing decisions in the pursuit of housing well-being for oneself or one’s family.

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