The impact of “not stated” and migration on Ireland’s home ownership rate

The census is a key source of reliable information on population and households in Ireland.  One important indicator taken from the census is on households’ tenure status: split between different types of owners and renters.  Since the publication of the census results on housing there has been considerable focus on the decline of Ireland’s homeownership rate relative to its peak in 1991.

In the 1991 Census, there were 808,385 households enumerated as owner-occupiers from a total number of permanent households of 1,019,723.  That gives a homeownership rate of 79.3 per cent. 

By 2022, the number of owner-occupiers had increased by almost 50 percent to reach 1,210,925.  However, the total number of households had increased by 80 per cent and there were 1,836,728 permanent households enumerated in Census 2022.  Thus, the homeownership rate was reduced to 65.9 per cent.

Here we will consider the impact of two factors on the change in the homeownership rate from the 1991 to 2022 Census:

1. Households whose tenure status is “not stated” on their census form, and
2. The change in the resident population due to migration

A subsequent post looks at recent changes in the tenure status of households headed by an Irish or UK national and examines how the housing squeeze is much more acute in the private rental sector, yet it is owner-occupiers that capture all the attention.

TENURE STATUS “NOT STATED”

In the 1991 Census, there were 9,396 households who were recorded with a tenure status of ‘not stated’.  This was equivalent to 0.9 per cent of the total number of permanent households. 

The table above is taken from the Census 1991 report on housing.  It is notable that this report was one of the last to be produced and was not published until February 1997, highlighting that this was not a priority area for results and publication.

In contrast, for Census 2022, the report on housing was the second to be published.  In this instance there were 80,235 permanent households whose tenure status was not stated on their census form.  This was equivalent to 4.4 percent of households.

One reason for the rise in “not stated” is the use in recent censuses of Reconciliation Forms for known households that did not return a census form.  Compliance with the census is high but not universal.  The CSO note that in 2016, just over 20,000 households were enumerated using Reconciliation Forms.

This makes the population count more accurate – which is, after all, the primary purpose of the census – but does impact other indicators taken from census data.  Part of the reason for the decline in the headline homeownership rate is due to the increase in the share of households whose tenure status is not stated. 

By definition, the census data cannot tell us anything about the  tenure status of such households.  Saying that homeownership has declined in favour of “not stated” is pretty meaningless.

Thus, it would be better to calculate such rates using only those households for whom a tenure status is known.  Using the numbers above this would give a base of 1,010,327 households in 1991 and of 1,756,493 households in 2022.  The amended homeownership rates become:

• 1991:   ( 808,385  / 1,010,327 ) x 100 = 80.0%
• 2022: ( 1,210,925 / 1,756,493 ) x 100 = 68.9%

Among households whose tenure status is known the homeownership rate declined from 80 per cent in 1991 to 69 percent in 2022.

MIGRATION

The second factor to be considered is migration.  As noted in an earlier post, the Ireland of 2022 is very different to that of 1991.

In the 1991 Census, 98.4 per cent of the population of 3.5 million was born on the islands of Ireland and Great Britain.  The equivalent figures for the 2022 Census were 85.4 per cent of a population of 5.1 million.  The number of people living here who were not born in Ireland or Britain went from 55,000 in 1991 to 730,000 in 2022.

Beginning with Census 2006, the CSO published a breakdown of tenure status by the nationality of the reference person of the household.  They have now also kindly provided a similar breakdown for the 2022 Census by the citizenship of the reference person of the household.

For 1991, the overall homeownership rate of 80.0 per cent can be taken as that for households headed by an Irish or UK national.  Other households made up such a small proportion of the population that they could not significantly move the homeownership rate.

In 2022, there were 237,560 households with a reference person who was not enumerated as an Irish or UK citizen.  Of these, there were 48,221 households where the citizenship of the reference person was not stated, giving 189,339 households with a reference person with a citizenship other of Ireland and the UK.  Thus, households headed by a non-Irish or non-UK citizen were 10.6 percent of households enumerated in the census (excluding not stated). 

Across the world, the homeownership rate of immigrants is typically found to be lower than that of native populations.  In Census 2022, the homeownership rate of the near 190,000 households headed by a non-Irish or non-UK citizen was 24.3 per cent. This will impact the overall result.

The details provided by the CSO show that the homeownership rate in Census 2022 for households headed by an Irish or UK citizen was 74.8 per cent.

Thus, while the headline homeownership rate in the census declined from 79 percent in 1991 to 66 percent in 2022 we note that:

1. If households whose tenure status was “not stated” on the census form are excluded the decline in homeownership is from 80 percent in 1991 to 69 percent in 2022, which better reflects the overall change in the homeownership rate in Ireland, and
2. If looking at households headed by an Irish or UK national the decline is from 80 percent in 1991 to 75 percent in 2022, which better reflects the change in the homeownership rate for the native population.