주택과 행복- 한국에서 주택환경과 주관적 행복감에 관한 연구 -

Abstract

Interest in the use of subjective well-being (SWB) in designing policy has been increasing in recent years. This article builds on Clapham’s elaboration of the potential channels through which housing can contribute to SWB in order to test the impact of three housing characteristics (tenure, size, and type) on Korean households. Using an extensive panel data set drawn from the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study (KLIPS), this article employs OLS and fixed effects regressions to unveil the relationship between housing arrangements and life satisfaction in Korea. As for the type of housing, our findings indicate that Koreans are happiest when living in apartment complexes. Happiness with house size is found to peak at 135-164m2 and to increase most when moving to apartments larger than 40m2. In addition, living in one’s own house is associated with the highest happiness gains, followed by jeon-se and wol-se contracts. Though perhaps unsurprising, these findings provide solid empirical evidence to support intuition and suggest that—within the limitations of spatial and financial resources—housing policy can increase life satisfaction by supplying larger apartments and fostering homeownership. When the ideals suggested by these findings are compared to the existing distribution of housing, the paper concludes that it is appropriate for policy to continue targeting the current size standard.