Loneliness within the Home among International Students in the Private Rental Sector in Sydney and Melbourne

ABSTRACT

We draw on 45 in-depth interviews and a large-scale survey we conducted, to examine loneliness among international students in Sydney and Melbourne within their accommodation. We discuss three features which increase the possibility of loneliness – the physical layout and use of the space; the social composition of fellow tenants, and power differentials between tenants. The interviews indicated that the lack of a congenial common area, having to share with students dissimilar with respect to nationality and language, and being in a situation where a tenant holds disproportionate power, are likely to hinder the development of social connections with fellow tenants.

摘要

我们通过45次深度访谈和一项大规模调查, 调查了悉尼和墨尔本留学生在住宿区内的孤独感 我们讨论了增加孤独可能性的三个特征——空间的物理布局和使用; 其他租户的社会构成, 以及租户之间的权力差异. 访谈表明, 缺乏一个志趣相投的共同领域, 不得不与国籍和语言不同的学生分享, 并且处于租户拥有不成比例权力的情况下, 可能会阻碍与其他租户发展社会关系.

KEYWORDS:

• International students
• loneliness
• private rental sector
• Australia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Netnographic research refers to the collection of data by entering into a data rich relevant internet site. In the study referred to “a data-rich and active site for doctoral students around the world was selected” (Janta et al. 2014, p. 558).

2. In May 2020 the average full-time average weekly earnings was $1714 (Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2021). The average rent in Sydney and Melbourne thus represents around a quarter of the average full-time weekly earnings.

3. Gamma is a measure of ordinal association. Two groups (Know/Don’t know cohabitants) were compared for responses on the subjective loneliness item (5 pt. scale). Gamma = 0.146 is a moderate association that was significant at p = 0.01 (n = 6191). Two groups from a recoded item (1 = “A family I know”; “People I don’t know”; 0 = “A family I don’t know”; “A partner”; “Friends / people I know”; “Siblings”; Excluded = ’I’m not sharing / living by myself’)

4. Question is: “Do you know what the total rent is for your accommodation (the whole apartment / house)?” coded Yes = 1/No = 0 for responses. Not knowing total rent is strongly associated with Know/Don’t know cohabitants (Gamma = −0.730; p < 0.01; n = 6107).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP190101073].