Quantifying Household Discomfort Perception: An Application for Spain

Oihana Aristondo (), Olatz Grijalba (), Eneritz Onaindia () and Silvia Perez-Bezos ()
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Oihana Aristondo: University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU
Olatz Grijalba: University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU
Eneritz Onaindia: University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU
Silvia Perez-Bezos: University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2024, vol. 175, issue 2, No 10, 577-612

Abstract: Abstract The physical structure of the dwelling itself and its immediate surroundings determine its Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) and this has a direct impact on the perception of comfort and wellbeing of the people who live there. Analysing the adequacy of housing from a comfort perception perspective makes it possible to better design renovation strategies for buildings. The aim of this paper is to define a multidimensional index based on multiple comfort variables to measure household discomfort. The proposed method assigns to each household a level of discomfort according to the comfort variables in which it is affected. Subsequently, these households’ values are aggregated to obtain an overall discomfort value for the society analysed. The evolution of the perception of discomfort from 2008 to 2020, the incidence of each of the variables, and the characteristics of the dwellings with the highest levels of discomfort are studied for Spanish households using the Spanish Survey on Income and Living Conditions. The results highlight a large increase in discomfort in 2020, the year of Covid-19 lockdown in Spain, and reveal that the most affected households are those living in populated areas, in apartments and in rented houses, and that the variable that affects them the most is Acoustic Comfort.

Keywords: Habitability; Spain; Households; Indoor environmental quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C02 C44 D63 I32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s11205-024-03384-x

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