A comparative study of housing in Korea and Singapore

This thesis compares the historical development of housing in two Asian Tigers,
Korea and Singapore. The thesis adopts comparative historical analysis for
systematic and contextualised comparison across nation states.
The thesis starts by reviewing the previous literature on the evolving views of
housing policy and housing regimes in the Western welfare states and the newly
industrialised countries in Asian-Pacific region. With these theoretical backgrounds,
the thesis investigates and compares the.developments of the housing systems, its
causal factors and consequences through comparative historical analysis. When it
comes to accounting for variations in housing between Korea and Singapore, the
case studies highlight how institutional characteristics established under colonial
rule e.g. viewpoints on social policy including housing or the designs of schemes,
were combined with different developmental strategies during the industrialisation
period. In addition, the case studies pose and examine the new relationship between
housing and other welfare pillars in Asia, which can be differentiated from those in
Western contexts.
The findings from the case studies reveal that the different ways in which
development models and enduring institutional arrangements were combined acted
as the critical factor determining the considerable variations apparent in housing
policy and outcomes in Korea and Singapore. The thesis demonstrates that the
emphasis on the variable of 'institutions' furthers the understanding of how path
dependency dominated most housing policy developments in Korea and Singapore.
When it comes to implications for comparative housing study, the findings support
the interpretation that Asian housing regimes with several sub-groups can be
differentiated from Western housing regimes. Finally, the findings indicate that it is
time for both states to think over how to live with 'institutional legacies' generating
considerable social costs.