Social Integration and Housing Behaviours of Immigrants: Evidence from Singapore's Public Housing Market

2026-07-20

AI Summary

This study examines how social integration shapes immigrants’ residential choices and housing cost disparities in the public housing market. Leveraging Singapore’s differentiated housing policies for immigrants as a quasi-natural experiment and drawing on longitudinal survey data from 1,128 immigrant and native-born households, the research moves beyond the static focus on ethnic segregation in traditional spatial assimilation theory to uncover the dynamic mechanisms through which social integration influences housing behavior—particularly in cities lacking ethnic enclaves. Integrating both subjective and objective measures of integration, econometric regression analyses reveal that among less-integrated immigrant renters, each additional year of residence is associated with a 3.04% increase in commuting distance and a 0.67% reduction in rent, with effects more pronounced for ethnic minorities. In contrast, naturalized immigrants exhibit no housing price premium in the resale market, suggesting that housing cost differentials dissipate upon full integration.

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of social integration on immigrants' housing behaviours from a temporal perspective, using Singapore's differential public housing policies on immigrants as a quasi-natural experiment. With the support of a local town council, we conducted a survey on social integration among 1,128 immigrant and local households living in public housing estates. In the public open rental housing market - primarily accommodating yet-to-integrate immigrants - we find immigrant renters live up to 3.04% farther from their workplace and pay lower rents up to 0.67% per additional year of residency. Such impacts are more substantial among minority ethnic groups. The results remain robust when using alternative subjective or objective measures of social integration. However, in the public resale housing market - primarily accommodating native and well-integrated naturalised citizens - we find that naturalised citizens face no price premiums relative to native homebuyers, implying no further effect of integration on housing prices after well-integration. This study extends the literature of spatial assimilation focusing on ethnic residential segregations and is generalizable to cities with few ethnic enclaves.

Problem

• social integration
• housing behaviour
• immigrants
• public housing market
• spatial assimilation

Innovation

• social integration
• quasi-natural experiment
• spatial assimilation
• public housing market
• immigrant housing behavior