The Relationship Between Size of Living Space and Subjective Well-Being

What the study found

More rooms per person raised housing satisfaction similarly for men and women, but had only a weak positive effect on men's life satisfaction and mental health and none for women, which the author reads as space working through status. Among people who moved for larger accommodation, housing satisfaction rose in the year of the move, fell slightly, then levelled out; the move had no positive effect on subjective wellbeing.

Limitations

Rooms per person is a coarse measure of space. The status pathway is the author's interpretation. UK panel only; sample size not extracted.

Neurodesign interpretation

Shows partial adaptation to a larger home, unlike the persistent rise in ND-0147. Worth reading the two together before saying anything general about adapting to homes.

Possible design implications

Hypothesis: extra space may be valued as housing but not felt as wellbeing, except as a status signal.

Study design

Fixed-effects regressions on panel data

Population

British Household Panel Survey respondents. Sample: not extracted.

Setting

Private homes, UK

Field

Housing, Environmental psychology

Mechanism

Habituation / adaptation, status signalling

Spatial variable

Living space (rooms per person)

Keywords

living space, housing satisfaction, adaptation, status, wellbeing

Notes and follow-up

Related records: ND-0147, ND-0148. Published online 2016; print issue 2017.