Over 14,000 people live in overcrowded households, official data shows

Over 14,000 people, marking 3.5% of the population, lived in overcrowded households during 2015, according to the statistics on income and living conditions (SILC) published by the National Statistics Office.

Overcrowding is defined by the number of rooms available to the household in relation to he household’s size, and other demographics. It can also be linked to relative poverty.

According to SILC, split according to gender, 7,788 males and 7,063 females live in an overcrowded household: these include 4,598 minors and 9,481 persons aged between 18 and 64.

The data shows that people living in rented dwellings are more prone to live in overcrowded households, as opposed to people living in owned households.

In owned households the overcrowding rate stood at 2.5%, whereas the corresponding rate for persons living in rented dwellings was 9.5%. For persons who were at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion, the overcrowding rate stood at 8.2% (7,751) whereas this rate stood at 2.2% for the rest of the population.

The rates of monetary poverty and material deprivation turned out to be significantly higher for persons living in overcrowded households, when compared to the rest of the target population.

“While the overall at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion rate stood at 22.4 per cent, it more than doubled to 52.2 per cent when only considering persons living in overcrowded households,” the NSO said.

The SILC is published annually and collects information on the income and living conditions of private households in Malta and Gozo. The 2015 panel survey included almost 4,300 households.

76.5% own their home

In 2015, less than half of all households (44%) in Malta and Gozo resided in houses, including detached, semi-detached or terraced houses.

The remaining share of households was mostly living either in apartments or maisonettes. The largest proportion of main dwellings, 31.1%, contained five rooms. This was followed by 23% of dwellings composed of six rooms, and 19.4% composed of seven or more rooms.

Home ownership was the most common type of tenure status, with 76.5% of all households owning their main dwelling.

Of these, more than three fourths were outright owners, meaning that they either never had a mortgage on their main dwelling or have repaid their debt. When considering households with dependent children, the share of home owners (85.7%) was higher than that for households without dependent children (71.5%).

However the trend is reversed for rented main dwellings with 22.6% of households without dependent children being tenants as against 9.8% of households with dependent children.

Average monthly housing cost at €141

The average monthly housing cost in 2015 was estimated at €141. Housing costs include interest paid on mortgages, rent payments, structural insurances, cost of utilities and regular maintenance and repairs.

Households with an annual disposable income of €10,000 or less, spent an average of €85 a month to cover housing costs, while households at the other end of the income spectrum, earning more than €30,000, spent €196 per month.

Overall, housing costs were perceived to be somewhat of a burden by 55% of all persons living in households. A further 34% considered these costs to be a heavy burden, while for the remaining 11% they were of no burden at all.

The median housing cost burden indicator, which measures housing costs as a percentage of household disposable income, stood at 4.2%.

For persons at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion, the median housing cost burden stood at 6.0%

Almost one third of all households reported pollution, grime or other environmental problems as one of the problems related to their main dwelling. Second to this was noise from neighbours or from the street, which was experienced by 26 per cent of all households.