Housing

© ANP / Joosten Fotografie

How people live, in terms of where and how they are housed, is important for their quality of life. It includes aspects such as social cohesion in the neighbourhood, neighbourhood amenities and the characteristics of the home itself. Because of its positive correlation with well-being, we look here at how satisfied people are with their home. See Van Beuningen (2018) for more information about the links between people’s well-being, their home and their living environment.

Satisfaction with the home

Situation in 2022

In 2022, 86.3 percent of Dutch adults were satisfied with their home, while 4.2 percent were dissatisfied and 9.1 percent were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Tenants are less likely to be happy with their home than homeowners (CBS, 2019a; CBS 2019b).

  • Relatively more women than men are satisfied with their home.
  • Adults aged up to 45 are less likely than average to be satisfied with their home, with the lowest share (76.3 percent) found among those aged between 25 and 34 years. People aged 45 years and older were more likely than average to be happy with their home.
  • People born in the Netherlands with parents born in the Netherlands are more likely than average to be satisfied with their home. People born outside the Netherlands and those with at least one parent was born outside Europe, are less satisfied than average with their home.

Sex, age, education level and origin/country of birth may correlate with each other. The percentage of people with higher education, for example, is not the same in all age groups. For the measurements conducted in this analysis, these relations are taken into account by applying a standardisation procedure, which corrects for the variation in the occurrence of the above characteristics. On the basis of standardised figures on satisfaction with the home, the above findings largely remain intact, however:

  • After correction of lower and higher education level groups for the unequal composition by sex, age and origin/country of birth, these groups show a different development: people with low levels of education are less satisfied than average with their homes; people with higher levels are more satisfied than average. The average levels of satisfaction for these groups emerging from the non-standardised figures are based on lower educated people being on average older, and higher educated on average younger.

Changes between 2019 and 2022

Overall, the share of people saying they were satisfied with their home was 1.2 percentage points lower in 2022 than in 2019. In the age group 18 to 24 years, however, the share who said they were satisfied with their home was 5.0 percentage points smaller than in 2019. People aged between 45 and 54 years were more positive: the share reporting they were happy with their home was 1.4 percentage points higher in 2022 than in 2019.

References

Beuningen, J. van, 2018, Woning en woonomgeving gerelateerd aan tevredenheid met het leven. Statistische Trends, Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, The Hague/Heerlen/Bonaire.

CBS, 2019a, Huurders minder tevreden met woning. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, The Hague/Heerlen/Bonaire.

CBS, 2019b, Woontevredenheid; kenmerken woningen, regio’s. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, The Hague/Heerlen/Bonaire.