Chapter 8: Housing characteristics
The 2005 census, like the 1995 census, included a large part regarding housing conditions of the population. This part contains housing tenure, electricity, size of living area, access to water, main source of energy for cooking and type of toilet facilities. Results are presented in Tables 8.1 to 8.7. They refer to private households.
8.1. Housing
Tenure status refers to the arrangements under which the household occupies its living quarters and the nature of its right to be there (see table 8.1). As an average for the whole country 96 percent of the households own their own houses/dwelling units. Only on urban areas and in particular in Vientiane Capital are there any significant number of other arrangements such as tenant and ties accommodation, in urban areas about 6 percent and in Vientiane Capital about 9 percent. In rural areas owner-occupiers are close to 100 percent. The tenure arrangements are basically the same as in the 1995 census.
Occupancy status definitions used
Response alternatives:
􀂙 Owner: An owner is one who owns the house or is in a process of buying it
􀂙 Tenant: A tenant rents and occupies the whole dwelling unit and generally pays electricity and water charges to urban authorities
􀂙 Lodger: A lodger rents part of a dwelling unit which is normally occupied by the owner
􀂙 Tied accommodation: A person living in tied accommodation occupies it by virtue of his or her job. The accommodation belongs to the employer and is made available as part of terms of employment.
􀂙 Other: Includes those who stay free in a dwelling unit but constituting a separate household
8.2 House construction
Tables 8.2.1 and 8.2.3 include questions about the construction quality of the house on type of building materials used for roof, wall and floor. Basically four types of houses can be identifies referring to the structure of materials:
􀂙 Concrete/brick houses,
􀂙 Wooden houses,
􀂙 Concrete/wooden houses and
􀂙 Semi-permanent houses with structures of bamboo, plywood and grass
The first three types of house are defined as permanence houses and the fourth type is defined as temporary house. About 10 percent of the private households live in semi-permanent houses where floor wall and roof are made of bamboo or grass (grass only on roof). The reminding households live in permanent houses (either of floor, wall or roof not made of bamboo or grass). The situation by province is illustrated in the following figure.
The average actual living area was 44 square meters with variation from 68 square meters in Vientiane Capital to 31 square meter in Attapeu and Oudomxay (see figure 8.2).
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8.3 Use of Electricity
Almost 50 percent of the private households have access to electricity through the national grid and another 10 percent through own generator or car battery. Thus about 40 percent of the households have no access to any electricity supply. In the 1995 census almost 75 percent had no access to electricity at all. Large achievements have thus been made during the past 10 years. Urban areas are by far better off compared to rural areas. In urban areas 90 percent had access to electricity from the public net, while 43 and 11 percent have similar access in rural areas with and without road, respectively. Among provinces accessibility vary from 95 percent in Vientiane Capital to 12 percent in Phongsaly. However, improvements have been made in all provinces.
8.3 water for Dringking and Cooking
About 35 percent of all private households had access to safe water (water from pipes or protected well/boreholes). During the last decade the use of safe water was improved which obviously showed the percentages of household using safe water were more than double. The corresponding share in 1995 was 15 percent. There are (still) large differences between regions and provinces. Thus 67 percent of urban households had safe water compared to 27 and 13 percent in rural areas with and without road, respectively.
Almost 53 percent of the households had access to water on the premises and 40 percent fetched water less than 500 meters from the house. Accessibility of water on the premises has almost doubled since 1995.
8.5 Main Source of Energy for Cooking
Around 80 percent of the households use wood as the main source for cooking, 15 percent use charcoal and 1 percent use electricity and gas, respectively. The change since 1995 is that charcoal has become more common at the expense of wood but use of electricity is even less used than in 1995. Changes in relative prices of energy sources has probably hold back uses of electricity in spite of the fact that many more households have access to electricity compared to 1995. In Vientiane Capital the percentage of households that use of electricity for cooking has declined from 14 to 7 percent.
8.6 Type of Toilet
Table 8.7 shows households’ uses of toilet. Almost half of the households did not make use of any toilets. In rural areas the proportion of households that uses proper toilet was 27 percent compared to 76 percent in urban areas.
As for the different types of toilet used,”normal” toilets (water toilet without flush) were most common, used by 38.5 percent of the households. Modern toilets are seldom used, not even in Vientiane Capital which was only 9.2 percent.
Contents:
- Population Size and structure
- Population Distribution and Migration Household Characteristics
- Education and Literacy
- Activity and Labor Force
- Fertility
- Mortality
- Housing Characteristics
- Population Projections
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