Ida Borg Researcher

Contact

Name and title: Ida BorgResearcher

Mail: ida.borg@humangeo.su.se

Phone: +468164850

ORCID0000-0002-9214-0152 Länk till annan webbplats.

Workplace: Department of Human Geography Länk till annan webbplats.

Visiting address Room X 333Svante Arrhenius väg 8

Postal address Kulturgeografiska institutionen106 91 Stockholm

About me

I am a researcher at the Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University. I am currently involved in two major research projects funded by the Swedish Research Council, both of which address aspects of housing, urban transformation, and segregation.

The first project, for which I am the PI, “Renovation, Privatisation, and Conversion in the Rental Sector – What Are the Consequences?” (2022–2026), explores three key transformations affecting Sweden’s rental housing market: the conversion of public rental units into tenant-owned apartments, the sale of public housing to private landlords, and large-scale renovations of rental buildings. The project examines how these processes influence patterns of residential mobility, neighbourhood change, and urban segregation. Using nationwide, longitudinal individual-level data and focusing on households moving in and out of affected areas, the project aims to uncover how these housing market changes shape urban inequality and social mixing. See more about this project on this link (coming soon!)

The second project, “Segregation Across Scales: The Role of Intergenerational Transmission, Residential Mobility, and Housing Construction” (2023–2029), is a comparative research program that examines the causes and consequences of segregation in Sweden and the Netherlands. It investigates how segregation operates at different spatial scales – from local neighbourhoods to larger urban areas – and how mechanisms such as new housing construction, residential moves, and intergenerational patterns contribute to its persistence.

In addition to my current research, I have participated in several completed projects that addressed key issues related to housing policy, spatial segregation, and social inequality. Below is a brief overview of these past research initiatives.

“Adequate housing conditions – the role of housing benefits in Sweden and abroad”
This project examined the effectiveness of housing benefits in addressing inadequate housing conditions across European countries. It explored how national rental market regulations and broader welfare systems shaped the design and impact of housing benefits. Using comparative surveys and macro-level data, the project investigated why poor housing conditions persist despite generous housing support in some contexts.

“The Neighbourhood Revisited – Spatial polarisation and social cohesion in contemporary Sweden”
This research program investigated how spatial polarisation contributed to societal divides in values, lifestyles, and social cohesion. It focused on neighbourhoods as spaces for social interaction, identity formation, and the building of social capital. The research program analysed how people with similar life-course trajectories clustered in particular areas, how neighbourhood context influenced attitudes, and how early residential environments shaped later life outcomes.

“Spatial integration and segregation – Disadvantaged groups in Sweden in the 2000s”
This project examined the impact of spatial segregation on the life trajectories of vulnerable groups in Sweden during the 2000s. It utilised register data and life-course methods to identify patterns of vulnerability and assess how residential environments influenced individuals' opportunities and risks. The project also investigated the role of housing policy, neighbourhood context, and spatial integration in shaping social outcomes.

“Vulnerability in longitudinal data – A geographical perspective”
This project addressed growing spatial inequalities in living conditions in Sweden, especially in metropolitan areas. It aimed to clarify the mechanisms behind the spatial sorting of vulnerable groups and the social consequences of increasing geographic polarisation. The analysis focused on how disadvantaged populations fared in the housing market over time and how policy changes affected spatial integration and exclusion.

Teaching

Population, Environment and Landscape Change, 7.5 HECs	Housing, Segregation and Moves 7.5 HECs
Social Science Methods and Research Design in Human Geography, 7.5 HECs	Bachelor´s Thesis in Human Geography, 15 HECs
Applications in Human Geography, 30 HECs (Course responsibility; 7,5 HECs)	GIS and Spatial Analysis I, 7.5 HECs
Geographical Information Analysis I, 7.5 HECs	Geographical Information Analysis II, 7.5 HECs
Social Science Methods and Research Design in Urban and Regional Planning, 7.5 HECs	Bachelor´s Thesis in Urban and Regional Planning, 15 HECs
Intelligence Analysis for Policy and Business with specialisation in Human Geography (not given any longer).	Urban and Regional Planning II, Scientific Approaches, Sources and Methods
Urban and Regional Planning III, Social Science Theory and Method – Focus Planning	Theory and Method in Globalisation, Environment and Social Change, 15 HECs

Graduate level:

Segregation Neighbourhood Effects and Housing Planning
Advanced Methods in Human Geography and Urban and Regional Planning 15 HECs
Guest lecturer at The Institute for Analytical Sociology (IAS) Master´s Programme in Computational Social Science course: Inequality and Segregation: Theory and Measurement 7,5 HECs (lecture and seminar three years in a row).
Supervisor of Master's Theses

Research

Peer-reviewed articles

Gustafsson, J., & Borg, I. (2025). Residualisation Localised: Suburban Poverty Trends in Malmö’s Rental Market. Tidsskrift for Boligforskning, 8(1), 40–60. https://doi.org/10.18261/tfb.8.1.4

Andersson, E. K., & Borg, I. (2023). Trajectories of Latent Vulnerability and Distress: Identifying Social and Spatial Fringes of the Swedish Population. Social Indicators Research. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-023-03173-y

Nelson, K., Borg, I., Nieuwenhuis, R., & Alm, S. (2023). The political determinants of housing benefits. European Sociological Review, 39(1), 104–117. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcac042

Borg, I., Kawalerowicz, J., & Andersson, E. K. (2022). Socio-spatial stratification of housing tenure trajectories in Sweden – A longitudinal cohort study. Advances in Life Course Research, 52, 100467. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alcr.2022.100467

Borg, I. (2019). Universalism lost? The magnitude and spatial pattern of residualisation in the public housing sector in Sweden 1993–2012. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 34(2), 405–424. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-018-09638-8

Borg, I., & Brandén, M. (2017). Do high levels of home-ownership create unemployment? Introducing the missing link between housing tenure and unemployment. Housing Studies, Journal Article, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2017.1358808

Borg, I. (2015). Housing Deprivation in Europe: On the Role of Rental Tenure Types. Housing, Theory and Society, 32(1), 73–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.2014.969443

Book chapters

Borg, I., & Guio, A.-C. (2021). 12. Improving our knowledge of housing conditions at the EU level (pp. 203–216). Publications Office of the European Union. https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-197913 Link to full text

Fritzell, J., Hertzman, J., Bäckman, O., Borg, I., Ferrarini, T., Nelson, K. (2014) ‘Sweden: Increasing Income Inequalities and Changing Social Relations’, in Nolan, B., Salverda, W., Checchi, D., Marx, I., McKnight, A., György Tóth, I., van de Werfhorst, H. (eds.) Changing Inequalities and Societal Impacts in Rich Countries. Thirty Countries' Experiences. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Books

Borg, I. (2018). Housing, poverty and the welfare state: Spatial distribution of tenure types and its effects on housing deprivation, unemployment and residualisation. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-159348

Reports

Fritzell Johan, Bacchus Hertzmann Jennie, Bäckman Olof, Borg Ida, Ferrarini Tommy, Nelson Kenneth (2014). Country Report on Growing Inequality and Its Impacts in Sweden. GINI: Growing Inequalities Impact, Amsterdam http://www.gini-research.org/articles/cr-sweden

Stenberg S-Å, Kjellbom P, Borg I, Sonmark K (2011). Varför vräks barn fortfarande? [Why are children still evicted?] Report for Ministry of Health and Social Affairs Dnr S2010/4139/FST

Media and other press

Kihlanki, H and Borg, I. (2016) Verkliga röster i debatten om svarthandel med hyreskontrakt – att tala med och inte om köpare [Real voices in the debate on black market rental contracts. To talk with and not about the buyers] PLAN, no 2, pp 44-47

Borg, I (2013). Bostadspolitiken och hyressektorn i Europa. Fronesis nr 42-43 Stockholm: Tidskriftsföreningen Fronesis

Stenberg, S.-Å., Kjellbom, P., Borg, I. & Sonmark, K. (2012). Nu är det 2012 och barn vräks fortfarande: i DN-debatt 2012-01-02. Dagens Nyheter.

Stenberg, S.-Å., Kjellbom, P., Borg, I. & Sonmark, K. (2011). Mer prat än verkstad från regeringen om vräkta barn: i DN Debatt 2011-12-24. Dagens Nyheter.

Population Association of America, PAA. Presenting paper: Socio-spatial stratification of housing tenure trajectories in Sweden – A longitudinal cohort study. Digital presentation, April 2022

European Network for Housing Research, ENHR. Presenting paper: The political determinants of housing benefits. Digital presentation, September 2021

Collaborative housing research seminar (Forum för bostadsforskning, FBS). Presenting paper: Housing tenure trajectories in Sweden. Digital presentation, March 2021.

European Network for Housing Research, ENHR. Presenting paper: Housing tenure trajectories in Sweden. Athens, Greece, 27-30th of August 2019

European Network for Housing Research, ENHR. Presenting paper: Improving our knowledge of housing conditions at the EU level. Uppsala, Sweden, 26-29th of June 2018

Net-SILC3 Conference and Workshop. International Conference on “Comparative EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions”. Presenting paper: Improving our knowledge of housing conditions at the EU-level, in Athens, Greece, 18-20 April 2018.

European Network for Housing Research, ENHR. Presenting paper: Residualisation of public housing in Sweden. Tirana, Albania, September 4-6, 2017

Nordic Geographers Meeting (NGM) Organised session H3 "Housing market change and housing construction in the 21st century: Segregation, inequality, public housing, marketisation, gentrification". Stockholm, June 2017. Presented paper: Residualisation of public housing in Sweden in the same session.

European Network for Housing Research, ENHR. Presenting paper: Labour market matching and home-owning sector size. Lisbon, Portugal, June 29 -July 2, 2015.

American Association of Geographers, AAG conference. Presenting paper: Worker mobility and the housing market: New approaches to the size of the rental and owner-occupied sectors and their consequences for labour. Chicago, USA April 21 -25, 2015

Conference and seminar organising:

Collaborative housing research seminar (Forum för bostadsforskning, FBS). Organising a digital seminar on “Sharing economy and housing” in September 2021, Stockholm.

Collaborative housing research seminar (Forum för bostadsforskning, FBS). Organising (and participating in) a digital seminar on “The role of the rental sector” in March 2021, Stockholm.

Collaborative housing research seminar (Forum för bostadsforskning, FBS). Organising a digital seminar on “Creative tenure types” in September 2020, Stockholm.

Nordic Geographers Meeting (NGM) Organised session H3 "Housing market change and housing construction in the 21st century: Segregation, inequality, public housing, marketisation, gentrification". Together with Professor Eva Andersson, Stockholm, Sweden, June 2017

Publications

Search publications

Residualisation Localised
Article
2025. Jennie Gustafsson, Ida Borg.
Tidsskrift for boligforskning 8 (1), 40-60
In Western European economies generally, and in Sweden in particular, public housing has been a mechanism that states use to combat inequality. However, housing researchers point to the increased residualisation of public housing across Europe. Scholars have also acknowledged the increased precariousness among private renters. Yet, few studies have investigated residualisation in both the public and private rental sectors while grounding this process in its urban context. Addressing this lacuna, the article explores how public and private rental housing have changed spatially and how this change ties into the residualisation process in Malmö, Sweden. We identify how a diversification ambition has spread the public housing sector evenly throughout the city while this sector has undergone a residualisation process, especially in so-called “less attractive” suburban areas. Meanwhile, private renting has increased in some of these “less attractive” areas, and the private rental sector has grown in the city since 2011. Concomitantly, we find a downturn in poverty among private renters after 2012, especially at a suburban level, which we link to private rental owners’ use of rent-increasing measures and stricter rental policies. In conclusion, the article argues, first, that residualisation studies need to explore shifts in both public housing and private renting. Second, it argues that studies of rental market change and its outcomes, framed within a rental system conceptualisation, benefit from being grounded in urban analysis.
Read more about Residualisation Localised
The political determinants of housing benefits
Article
2023. Kenneth Nelson, Ida Borg, Rense Nieuwenhuis, Susanne Alm.
European Sociological Review 39 (1), 104-117
Housing benefits differ substantially across countries. In this paper, we apply power resource theory, developed primarily in relation to the emergence and subsequent expansion of social citizenship, to housing policy. The purpose is to analyse the political determinants of housing benefits, and particularly the role of left parties and the partisan mobilization of labour. The empirical analyses are based on new housing benefit data for 31 affluent democracies from the period 2001–2018. The results of a series of fixed effects pooled time-series regressions show that the strength of left government is positively associated with the size of housing benefits. However, the positive influence of left cabinets is conditional on the relative size of rental housing and the fractionalization of the party system. Our findings highlight the need to combine actor-oriented explanations of the welfare state with theories about the corporatist power structures of society.
Read more about The political determinants of housing benefits
Trajectories of Latent Vulnerability and Distress
Article
2023. Eva K. Andersson, Ida Borg.
Social Indicators Research 993-1015
It can be argued that a society is never better than how Individuals on its social and spatial fringes are faring. This motivates the purpose of this paper, which is to study how vulnerable groups can be identified, defined and explored in a spatial perspective using latent class analysis (LCA) on the whole Swedish population. We use space to refine meanings of vulnerability in individuals and groups, by contextualizing their vulnerability. This knowledge is fundamental for creating equal living conditions and for promoting the social cohesion needed for socially sustainable societies. Thus, equality and spatial integration are basic ideas in welfare policy but in recent years, the idea of integration has met various challenges with new population groups, rural–urban polarization, and disadvantaged housing areas. Using register data, we here identified life course trajectories associated with vulnerability, applying LCA to the total Swedish population aged 25 to 59 years. We identified latent classes of life courses, and detected and explored some classes with more vulnerability than others. The spatial patterns of vulnerable individuals were analysed using individualized neighbourhoods including the proportion of closest neighbours belonging to a latent class. A second LCA of vulnerable individuals refined the findings into different types of distress; extra distressed life courses were found in the metropolitan areas in Million program areas in urban outskirts, and other distressed life courses were more often found in unattractive (low housing price) rural areas, rural fringes.
Read more about Trajectories of Latent Vulnerability and Distress
Vilka flyttar när fastigheten renoveras?
Report
2023. Ida Borg.
Read more about Vilka flyttar när fastigheten renoveras?
Socio-spatial stratification of housing tenure trajectories in Sweden – a longitudinal cohort study
Article
2022. Ida Borg, Juta Kawalerowicz, Eva K. Andersson.
Advances in Life Course Research
Individuals tend to be most mobile when they are between 20 and 40 years of age. This pattern is relatively stable across regions and over time. For geographical mobility, less is known about their transitions between different types of housing and tenure forms. In Sweden, households may select between, principally, three different types of tenure forms, each often coupled with a specific housing type. Households may rent from either public companies (municipality owned) or private landlords in multifamily dwellings, households may own their single-family house privately, or they can cooperatively own a multifamily house as a tenant-owner in an apartment. Yet we lack knowledge of which tenure trajectories individuals tend to follow during their most mobile years, and we also lack knowledge about which factors determine tenure trajectories. Our sample consist of individuals who in 1995 were aged 18–25 and who left their parental house between 1994 and 1995. This study tracks their tenure trajectories for 21 consecutive years starting in 1995 until 2015. The cohorts in our sample were the first who encountered the conditions on the deregulated housing market that are still in place in Sweden today. We followed these cohorts until they were between 39 and 46 years old and used sequence analysis to classify tenure trajectories. One result that stands out is the outstanding and increasing emphasis on home ownership in our sample, quite unlike the traditional picture of the Swedish housing market. Additionally, we found that resources in a broad sense and spatial context have a great impact on the type of trajectory individuals follow.
Read more about Socio-spatial stratification of housing tenure trajectories in Sweden – a longitudinal cohort study