Diffuse informality: uncovering renting within family households as a form of private rental

Abstract

This paper sheds new light on informal-formal renting through the integration of paying rent to families within a ‘modes’ of renting typology framework. While private rental housing has long comprised a mix of informal and formal practices dualistic conceptions of informality and formality are being challenged as housing research explores emergent family and sharing economies alongside financialized and rentier economies. Well-used concepts of property rights and tenure or de jure occupancy are expanded to incorporate more nuanced measures of de facto occupancy, particularly relating to the family economy in which we argue represents a form of diffuse informality not well captured in national data collections based on tenure alone. Applying this conceptualisation within an Australian survey of more than 2,870 individual renters within the informal-formal market, we find that informal renting within families is pervasive. Our findings are suggestive of structural changes where a sizable cohort of discouraged and tactical renters are locked out of or bypassing mainstream rental markets.

Keywords:

• Private rental
• tenure
• secure occupancy
• informality
• family economy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sharon Parkinson

Sharon Parkinson, is a Senior Research Fellow researching housing and social inequality and leader of the Technology, Equity and Inclusion Stream within the Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of Technology.

Kath Hulse

Kath Hulse is Emeritus Professor of Housing Studies at the Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne.

Steven Rowley

Steven Rowley is a Professor in the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance at Curtin University, Western Australia and Director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute’s Curtin Research Centre.

Amity James

Amity James is an Associate Professor in the School of Accounting Economics and Finance at Curtin University, Western Australia and the Deputy-Director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute’s Curtin Research Centre.

Wendy Stone

Wendy Stone is Professor of Housing and Social Policy, and Leader, Housing Futures Research, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology.