Subjective perception versus objective indicators of overcrowding and housing affordability

This article seeks to evaluate indicators of overcrowding and housing affordability used by Eurostat and to propose alternatives that may better reflect the specific contexts of individual EU states while preserving the possibility of valuable international comparison. The alternatives are assessed on the basis of the distance between the results produced by objective measures and the subjective evaluations of the problem reported by households, using one and the same data source: EU-SILC. The results show that alternative threshold definitions may decrease the current discrepancy between subjective perceptions and objective indicators of housing affordability and overcrowding. They also have the potential to lead to more effective targeting of public subsidies so that they are
directed towards housing programmes that not only have an objective goal but also a subjectively identified legitimacy.