Income Inequality and Housing Access in Canada

Abstract

Income inequality can have negative consequences on countries’ economy, cultural quality and politics. At the same time, housing access has become a vital problem for countries’ development and growth. In many countries, income inequality is considered as a major problem. The association between income inequality and housing access has become an important issue in recent years. In this paper, I analyze how income inequality influences housing access in Canada. At first, I observe the GINI coefficient of each Canadian province along with the housing access problem in a fixed effect model without controlling for any categorical variables, then I analyze the result with controls for categorical variables. The results show that income inequality increases housing cost burden for low-income households and decreases housing quantity during 2000-2004.