Housing Demand Among Panama's Middle- and Low-Income Population

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

Introduction

This report contains findings from a housing survey conducted in Panama during the fall of 1995. The objective of the survey was to learn more about the demand for housing among the low- and middle-income urban population that is not well served by public sector housing programs. Focusing on this underserved population allows us to examine the behavior of households engaging in market transactions that are relatively uninfluenced by public assistance.

To ensure that our sample had a high probability of capturing unassisted low- and middle-income households, our sampling frame included only census tracts in which the majority of households had monthly incomes falling between B125 and B506 in 1990.¹ The lower cutoff was implemented to exclude areas that were likely to have a high degree of government assistance. The upper limit is equal to the 60th percentile urban household income according to the 1990 census. Local experts identified barrios within the sampling frame with large amounts of publicly assisted housing; these barrios were also dropped from the sampling frame.

The survey covered two urban areas: the Panama city metropolitan area and the city of David. David was judged to be a fairly typical city that, being located in the far west, was removed from Panama city's direct sphere of influence. Obviously, one city cannot adequately represent all other cities outside of metropolitan Panama; however it can draw attention to possible systematic differences between the metropolitan area and other cities. The final sample included 916 households from the Panama city metropolitan area and 511 households from David. Annex 1 discusses the sample in more detail.

The remainder of this paper is divided into five sections. The first section provides an overview of household and dwelling unit characteristics. The second part describes how households acquire their units and examines their mobility. The third section explores how households modify their housing consumption through additions and improvements to their units. The fourth section focuses on housing expenditures and financing. The final section summarizes the key findings.

Notes from this Section

1. 1 Balboa = 1 U.S. Dollar.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

Usage, posting and reprint of materials on the UI web site:

Most publications may be downloaded free of charge from the web site in PDF format. This information may be used and copies made for research, academic, policy or other non-commercial purposes. Proper attribution is required.

Copyright of the written materials contained within the Urban Institute website is owned or controlled by the Urban Institute. Posting UI research papers on other websites is permitted subject to prior approval from the Urban Institute—contact paffairs@urban.org.

If you are unable to access or print the PDF document please contact us or call the Publications Office at (202) 261-5687.