Immigration and Housing: North-Western Europe

Immigrants to North-West Europe are more likely than the indigenous populations to live in deprived areas and occupy poor-quality, overcrowded, and unpopular housing and to pay a higher proportion of their income in housing costs. The housing experience of migrants reflects their immigrant status, ethnic origin, legal rights of access, and length of stay. A hierarchy of vulnerability can be discerned with the most vulnerable groups (undocumented migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees) experiencing the worst deprivations. Immigrant housing circumstances are also conditioned by the variable structures of national housing markets. Widespread commodification has tended to reduce, but not eradicate, these variations in recent years, resulting in a degree of similarity of immigrant experience across the countries of North-West Europe.