• Land and Housing Review
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.23-32
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• 2012

The Schwabe's law explains the housing demand weighs more on demographic factors rather than on socio-economic factors as societies achieve higher level of economic development. Based on Schwabe's law, the present study constructs a hypotheses to analyze changes of housing demand with respect to housing tenure change in Seoul Metropolitan Area (SMA) during the periods of 1980 to 2005. To test the hypotheses, the authors take advantage of the Population and Housing Census 2% data from 1980 to 2005. The authors apply binary probit with decomposition method to verify our hypotheses. The authors found that the influence of socio-economic factors on housing tenure have been weakened in the housing market during the periods of 1980 to 2005. On the other hand, the relative influence of demographic factors have been strengthened in the housing market during the periods. The present study concludes that housing demand in the SMA have been dramatically changed from socio-economic characteristics to demographic factors to decide housing tenure during the periods, which confirms the hypotheses of the present study.