Page 1 of 6
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 03 Issue 01
January 2017
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 126
Socioeconomic Characteristics of the Low Income
Group in Kuala Lumpur’s Public Housing
Norizan Rameli1* Dani Salleh2 Mazlan Ismail3
1School of Government, College of Law, Government and International Studies
(COLGIS), University Utara Malaysia (UUM)
2,3Department of Planning and Property Development, School of Government (COLGIS),
University Utara Malaysia (UUM)
* E-mail of the corresponding author: norizanrameli@ymail.com
Abstract:
Public housing is a vital essence of survival for the
low income group in city. Although the public
housing are technically been provided to enhance
quality of life for the low income, there are still
several flaws that should be improved. Thus, the
socioeconomic factors of the public housing’s
residences must be refined towards the enhancement
of the public housing programmes as well as
strengthen the residence affordability. A number of
400 head household are chosen as the respondents
based on the stratified sampling technique according
to public housing zones in Kuala Lumpur. The
socioeconomic factors are defined which including
the household income, household expenditures, type
of employments, education levels, household size,
monthly payment for housing and savings. A detailed
socioeconomic factors would enable a long-term
policy planning which involved the integration from
vary ministry be well-organized towards the
assurance of the low income group to sustain
homeownership affordability in city.
Keywords
public housing, low income group, socioeconomic
characteristics, affordability, homeownership
1. Introduction
The public housing plays a vital role to ensure an
ongoing housing affordability for the low income
group in lives survival. The houses units offered in
the market are quite solid to provide sufficient needs
for the low income group which a majority of them
are facing affordability complications (Whitehead &
Scanlon, 2007). The high housing payment offered in
the market affected the affordability of low income
group due to their small monthly income (Winters &
Elsinga, 2008). Hence, the public housing is the best
alternative for the low income group to purchase or
rent houses in the lowest rate.
Besides of providing the houses as shelters, the
public housing is also important to increase
affordability level of the low income group financing
the non-housing expenditures such as foods,
transportation facilities, educations and health
treatments for ongoing lives. It is due a low rate of
housing payment enable the low income group to
spend a large portion of income for the other needs
(Luffman, 2006). This indicates that the low rate of
monthly payment allowed the low income group to
reduce their living expenses as well as providing
some space for family’s household consume the
residues income for giving the best education
services for their children as education is a long term
human capital investment which potentially gain
profits (Kutty, 2005).
The public housing is also known as transit houses
for the low income group. Hence, public housings
are functioned as the first step towards increasing
quality of life. Dwelling period with low rate should
be exerted wisely among the low income group to
obtain jobs and working experiences (Zhang, 2013).
Thus, public housing tenancies in United Kingdom
left the public housing units after facing economic
stability such as stable employment and best income.
The stability in employment will increase
homeownership affordability until the household is
competent to afford housing in markets and
simultaneously improve life quality (Clarke & Monk,
2011).
Nevertheless, the initial importance of public
housing to help the low income group who is facing
various financial difficulties are always be given
prior attention. This is a concerning affordability
issues which are crucial in public housing rather than
the private housing. Evidently, the large number of
public housing dwellers in Ireland utilized over 30%
of the income for monthly payment comparing
private housing dwellers (Winters & Elsinga, 2008).
Therefore, the effort to tackle the housing
affordability of the low income group in the public
housings should be involving precise non-housing
Page 2 of 6
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 03 Issue 01
January 2017
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 127
cost as the basic reference for any programmes to
improve their homeownership affordability.
Moreover, the importance of public housing as one
of the instruments to enhance the affordability
amongst the low income group is likely to be
prominent during the economic crisis. This is due
incapability of the markets to provide houses for
them during the crisis, causing the escalation demand
of public housing goes globalized in the European
countries (Schwartz 2011). The importance of public
housing must be harmonized together with the
allotment of subsidy and government’s intervention
to prevent homeownership affordability issue
becomes critical.
Additionally, the public housing provided by the
authorities has its importance to give a chance for the
low income group in accessing housing with the
lowest rate particularly in the urban areas. This is
vital for the low income group access houses near the
workplaces because their contributions are needed in
urban industrial such as the hotel sector in Sydney
city. The high cost of houses in the urban areas
causes the low income group to live far away from
their workplaces. A long journey will likely intensify
transportation costs, time consuming from home to
work could impact their work performances and
family relationship. Furthermore, the uncertainty
working hours in hotel sector also disrupted
employee safety as they had to go to work early in
the morning and midnight especially the women
(Yates & Gabriel, 2006). Thus, the provision of
public housing in urban areas is vital to ensure the
low income group could persistently contributes in
urban industrials and giving positive impact in
economy growth despite preserving social
relationships and household safety.
Therefore, this research identifies the socioeconomic
backgrounds of the low income group living in Kuala
Lumpur public housing. It is because the
socioeconomic factors or demography significantly
affects the future housing demand and played an
important role to enhance the nation homeownership
rate (Belsky, 2009). Besides, the past research also
suggested the socioeconomic factors or demography
was taken in this complex homeownership issue
(Tan, 2007).
2. Methodology
Kuala Lumpur is a metropolitan city in Malaysia
with a rapid growth in urban population and
economic transformation. This city is known as the
center of culture and economy due to its position and
status as the capital and primate city. Kuala Lumpur
is also crowned as the Alpha world city, and the only
global city in Malaysia based on the Globalization
and World Cities Studies Group and Network
(GaWC) (Junaidi Awang Besar, Rosmadi Fauzi &
Amir Saifude Ghazali, 2012). Hence, the increasing
population in the city is continuously escalating
along with the city's population growth in Peninsular
Malaysia at approximately six millions from 2010
until 2020 especially in Greater Kuala Lumpur
(Economic Planning Unit, 2010).
The rapid revolution in Kuala Lumpur encourages
the necessity to ensure Kuala Lumpur to be a well- competed city to live in, work and recreation
activities. This necessity is bore by the Kuala
Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) as the agency under the
Ministry of Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing.
DBKL acts in vary scopes including the city
planning, constructions control, health treatments
and public sanitation, disposal and waste
management’s, environmental protection, the
maintenance of urban infrastructure, social and
economy, including the residential (DBKL, 2015).
The public housing management is functioned well
under the Housing Management & Community
Development Department (JPPPK). Despite
accommodating the entrance of renters into the
houses units, JPPPK also manages the houses units
selling and plays an important role for enhancing the
community in public housing areas. DBKL has
divided the housing management areas into four
different zones to ease the management operations of
public housing. The division according to certain
zones enables the housing management works
effectively and efficiently towards providing the best
service for residences of public housing. Zone 1
involves Bandar Tun Razak residential area, Sungai
Besi, Cheras and Bukit Jalil. Zone 2 includes
Kerinchi residential area, (Lembah Pantai, Jalan
Puchong) Pantai Dalam to Bukit Kiara. Zone 3
includes residential area around Sentul, Jalan Tun
Razak to Jinjang Utara (Kepong, Jalan Ipoh) and
Selatan. Zone 4 includes the residential around
Setapak, Wangsa Maju, Gombak and Datuk
Keramat. Besides of managing and maintaining
public housings, the zone management also
systematizes social agenda in respective residential
areas (DBKL, 2015).
The population covered entirely the four residential
zones in Kuala Lumpur. The total population is the
numbers of rental-status units which had been sold to
the current residences are 9287 units including public
housing in Zone 1, Zone 2, Zone 3 and Zone 4. Zone
1 includes PA Seri Sabah 3A, PA Seri Sabah 3B, PA
Seri Labuan and PA Seri Kota. Zone 2 includes PA
Bukit Kerinchi 1A, Zone 3 includes PA Seri
Kelantan, PA Seri Perak, PA Seri Pangkor and PA
Seri Negeri Sembilan. Zone 4 includes PA Desa
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Page 3 of 6
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 03 Issue 01
January 2017
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 128
Rejang, PA Wangsa Maju R10 and PA Setapak Jaya
1A. However, PA Negeri Sembilan in Zone 3 and
PA Setapak Jaya 1A in Zone 4 are not included in
the total population because the residential areas
involved in the redevelopment area planning.
Therefore, the selling units in the residential area
have to end. The process of selling public housing
units which is launched on 2009 is still on progress
until now. The selling units are according to the
ability and decisions from the residences in public
housing units (DBKL, 2015).
Table 1: Public Housing Population
Zone Residential Area Units Blocks Levels
Zone
1
PA Seri Sabah
3A 816 4 17
PA Seri Sabah
3B
1020 5 17
PA Seri Labuan 640 5 4
PA Seri Kota 1224 6 17
Zone
2
PA Bukit
Kerinchi 1A
256 1 16
Zone
3
PA Seri
Kelantan
791 3 17
PA Seri Perak 1428 7 17
PA Seri Pangkor
1
64 2 5
Zone
4
PA Desa Rejang 2568 12 17
PA Wangsa
Maju R1
290 7 4
PA Wangsa
Maju R10
190 5 4
Total unit 9287
Source: DBKL, 2015
Due to the different sizes of zones, the samples
selection is stratified according to the zoning sizes.
Thus, the number of samples in zone 1 is (159 units),
zone 2 (12 units), zone 3 (98 units) and zone 4 (131
units) to achieve a total samples of 400 units. The
400 unit’s means 400 household head are chosen to
be the respondents representing a public housing
unit. The PA Seri Kota is selected as zone 1, PA
Bukit Kerinchi 1A as zone 2, PA Seri Perak as Zone
3 and PA Desa Rejang as zone 4. The chosen areas
have the highest public housing units to represent
certain zones (DBKL, 2015). After the distributions
of the questionnaires, only 365 forms are filled in
completely which makes the total selected samples
are 365 respondents.
3. Result and Discussion
Majority of the respondents, 73% are men whereas
27% respondents are women. According to the types
of races, 76.4% are Malay, Indian with 16% and
Chinese as the least ones by only 7.6%. According to
the categorized age range, 41.3% aged 51 to 60 years
old, followed by respondents in the age 61 to 70
years old by 21.1%. The age group between 41 to 50
years old is 18%, 31 to 40 years old age group is
10.4%, below 30s is 5.1% and over 71 years old is
4.2%. Based on the married status, majority of the
respondents are married which is 89.3%, 9.3% of
respondents are widows, 1.1% respondents are
widowers and only 0.3% is single (Table 2).
Table 2: Head of households backgrounds
66.6% which is over half of the respondents are
above 50 years old. This is possibly because of the
respondents are initially tenants which had been
offered to buy the rental units. The bids are
encouraged by the government’s action to sell houses
units to the current tenants. For the respondents who
aged below 40 years old, there are some of them who
take over the function of head household due to their
parent’s illnesses and incapable to work. These
respondents are considered as the second generation
homeowner of public housing. There are second
generations having own families and live with their
parents in the public housing units. Although this
research focuses on the household head which is the
first generation as the respondents, due to the age
factor, the children of household head who live
together and contribute to the household income are
also be considered as household head.
Majority of the household head, 73% are men acted
as the backbone of the family, whereas 27%
household head are women due to the death of
spouse, divorced or husband’s disability to work
which forced income earning is on the wife’s
responsibilities. Based on the marriage status,
married respondents mostly are either in marriage,
widowers or widows. The marriage status is
equivalent with the terms of homeownership or lease
Profile Category Respondents Percentages
Gender
Men
Women
Total
260
96
356
73.0
27.0
100
Race
Malay
Chinese
Indian
Total
272
27
57
356
76.4
7.6
16.0
100
Age
Below30years old
31 to 40 years old
41 to 50 years old
51 to 60 years old
61 to 70 years old
Over 71 years old
Total
18
37
64
147
75
15
356
5.1
10.4
18.0
41.3
21.1
4.2
100
Status
Single
Married
Widower
Widow
Total
1
318
4
33
356
0.3
89.3
1.1
9.3
100
