Regional differences in housing affordability in the Czech
Republic and their consequences on labour migration
Petr Sunega
Institute of Sociology, Academy of Sciences of the CR
Jilska 1
110 00 Prague 1, Czech Republic
petr.sunega@soc.cas.cz
The aim of the paper is to discover whether the regional differences in housing affordability
have significant impact on intended labour migration in the Czech Republic. Due to the lack
of relevant data file(s) on household incomes and housing expenditures it was necessary to
apply alternative methodological approach to obtain regional housing affordability
indicators. For measuring housing affordability and regional differences in housing
affordability several indicators were used (e.g. share of housing expenditures on household
incomes, residual income, price-to-income ratio, lending multiplier). Other indicators were
used for assessment of the development of regional disparities (e.g. variation coefficient, βdivergence
coefficient etc). Despite the shortcomings of existing migration data a time series
regression analysis reveals that the impact of housing affordability on observed interregional
migration patterns is relatively weak; and this effect is concentrated among the
highly educated seeking employment in the capital, Prague.
Keywords: housing, housing affordability, housing tenure, labour migration.