Are people willing to share living space? Household preferences in Finland

This paper explores citizens' interest in space sharing in private housing. It is based on a large-scale random sample citizen survey (N = 1448) conducted in Finland focusing on multiple aspects of low-carbon housing. Both quantitative preference-related results and qualitatively analysed open question responses show that the concept of shared space use is relatively low in popularity. However, there are differences depending on the space to be shared. Approximately half of the respondents are willing to use shared space for exercise, children playing and repairing activities, whereas a small fraction would use it for cooking, working and studying, or guest accommodation. Respondents' backgrounds only slightly impact the willingness to share spaces. However, people in urban areas are more willing to share spaces. Larger floor area per inhabitant is negatively associated with the willingness to share spaces. This implies that sufficiency in housing is linked with space-sharing interests. This paper concludes that space-sharing is relatively unattractive under present conditions. Improving functionality and social trust by attractive design, clearer user rules and spreading good examples could be approaches to enhance the situation.