Over 17,000 live in overcrowded households, living conditions survey finds

Malta’s overcrowding rate continued to rise in 2019, standing at 3.7% of the population (estimated at  just over 17,600) living in private households, up from 3.4% in 2018, a new EU-SILC report shows.

Overcrowding is defined by the number of rooms available in the household in relation to the household’s size and other demographics.

The 2019 EU-SILC survey, published annually for all EU member states, gathers data on income and living conditions of private households around Malta and Gozo. Among the data gathered is tenure status, housing costs, number of persons in each household and the household's economic conditions.

There are stark differences when comparing the overcrowding rate by tenure status and economic conditions. The overcrowding rate for persons living in rented dwellings stands at 12.5%, while the rate for owner-occupied households is a low 2%.

For persons on the at-risk-of-poverty line or suffering from social exclusion, the overcrowding rate stood at 8.8%.

Home ownership remains the most common type of tenure status, with close to 77% of households owning their main dwelling. From these, 57.2% repaid their debt in full or have never had a mortgage on their main dwelling.

On the topic of housing costs, only 13.2% of survey respondents felt that these costs were of no burden whatsoever. This contrasts to the 65.1% who feel that housing costs constitute a slight burden, and a further 21.7% who consider these costs as a heavy burden.

Compared to 2018, this is an increase of 8 percentage points in the number of persons who perceive housing costs to be a slight burden.

Pollution, grime and other environmental problems were reported to be the most common housing problems among 34.6% of respondents, with neighbourhood noise the second most mentioned problem among households.

A majority of all inhabited dwellings were either maisonettes or apartments, while 36.8% of dwellings were semi-detached or terraced houses.