New research investigating the precariousness of housing for Australia’s booming international student market has been awarded funding in the latest round of Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project grants.
Led by Professor Alan Morris from the UTS Institute of Public Policy and Governance, his fellow chief investigators are Associate Professor Gaby Ramia from the University of Sydney, and Associate Professor Shaun Wilson from Macquarie University, the three-year project will explore the housing circumstances of international students in the private rental sector in Sydney and Melbourne.
It is anticipated that the research will provide a strong evidence base that can help policymakers reduce precarious housing among international students.
The project intends to generate new knowledge on the housing circumstances, the extent of housing precariousness and its impacts on students’ wellbeing and academic experience. It will also develop a new scale to assess the extent and impact of housing precarity along the following five dimensions: affordability, security of tenure, housing condition, privacy, and neighbourhood quality.
It is anticipated that the research will provide a strong evidence base that can help policymakers reduce precarious housing among international students.
"There is little endeavour to ensure that international students live in adequate circumstances. By highlighting the housing circumstances of international students, this study will hopefully encourage a more concerted national effort to guarantee the wellbeing of students outside of the college or university in which they are enrolled," says Professor Morris.
Providing education for the international student market has become Australia’s third-largest export, with international education income growing by $3.8 billion in the financial year to June 2018 to reach $31.9 billion.
This growth trajectory is set to continue, with a recent report by the British-based Centre for Global Higher Education suggesting Australia will overtake the UK to become the world's second most popular destination for international students by 2019.
The project is one of twenty three UTS-led research projects which have attracted over $10 million in federal funding through the current round of ARC grants, which are designed to strengthen Australia’s research capacity and support development of new ideas, the creation of jobs, economic growth and an enhanced quality of life in Australia.
Professor Morris is a leading urban and housing studies scholar, and the author of several books including Gentrification and Displacement: The Forced Relocation of Public Housing Tenants in inner-Sydney; The Australian Dream: Housing Experiences of Older Australians; A Practical Introduction to In-depth Interviewing and Bleakness and Light: Inner-City Transition in Hillbrow, Johannesburg.
He has previously been the lead Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery grant (2014-2016) exploring the circumstances of long-term private renters, and is a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Linkage grant (2016-2018) titled 'Local government and housing in the 21st century'.