Single Households and Housing Costs: Free Choice or Market Constraints?

The Housing costs of households are diverse. Especially the costs of single households are often high. Single households occur in any stage of the life cycle, among starters, divorced couples, widows or widowers. For some of them the costs pass 40% of their income and this percentage will increase in the near future. As a single wage earning household they often consume a lot of dwelling space. As a consequence of this the total housing costs are high. If this situation remains unchanged, in the future some of them can hardly afford their housing costs.The situation is even more urgent because the amount of single households in the Netherlands is increasing substantially the coming decades. This paper is based on an extensive survey on housing costs among households in the region of Eindhoven. The question 'Are housing costs of singles high as a consequence of the overconsumption of dwelling services or as a consequence of the constraints on the housing market?' comes up.After exploring the problem of housing cost for different single households in different housing situations (tenure, building period, energy performance of the dwelling, dwelling type, etc.) suggestions are made to control or reduce their housing costs in the short and long term.