Social capital and homeownership among immigrants: insights for Brunei

Abstract

The increasing number of immigrants in the host country has often raised demands for several services.  This may refer to basic needs such as education, employment and housing.  The study's main problem is the inaccessibility of the middle-income immigrants’ generations in Brunei Darussalam to homeownership. Although the immigrants’ generations have been staying long in the country and born locally, they are inaccessible to housing and homeownership. This study aims to answer the research question that guides this paper “what are the social capital factors affecting the immigrants’ homeownership?.  Therefore the objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between social capital factors and the homeownership status of the immigrants. The study discussed social capital factors, including culture, social network, trust and loyalty on homeownership of the immigrants in Brunei Darussalam. The data of this study were collected from a questionnaire and analysed using SPSS and SEM. The analysis on the relationship between social capital factors and homeownership shows p = .0136*, which implies that social capital directly impacts immigrants’ homeownership in Brunei. However, homeownership access in practice is determined by housing policy and that the immigrants are naturalised citizens. The result of the study has led to other associated factors like housing policy included for future research.