Relationship between co-living space and personal development of local young tenants

Abstract

The first co-living space, as a new housing model that provides tenants with opportunities to not only share living space with other neighbors, but also to exchange ideas and interact on similar intentions and values entered Hong Kong market in 2015. The main purpose of the study is to find out whether co-living spaces are attributable to personal development of local young tenants in dimensions of interpersonal skills, initiative to enrich professional qualification and improvement in work performance. Also, the study also covers the impact brought by the changes in the above-mentioned dimensions of personal development. There were a total of 74 and 99 valid surveys completed by co-living respondents and young ordinary respondents respectively. By comparing with data collected from young ordinary respondents with similar demographic background information, it is found that general co-living respondents demonstrated improvement in socializing skills, problem-solving skills, work performance and more initiative to enrich professional qualification after residing in co-living. However, they did not improve much in communication skills after residing in co-living space. There were also impact brought by the changes in personal development induced by co-living space. Firstly, relationships between co-living tenants and their families became closer even though they no longer lived under the same roof. This was contributed by the improved ability to maintain relationship with people within tenants’ social circles. Secondly, co-living space tenants were more able to analyze issues from different perspectives before making decision with improved problem-solving skills. Also co-living space tenants tended to make collaborative decisions for example by enrolling in courses and seminars to enrich professional qualification and provision which boosted their competitiveness as a way to facilitate their career development. New perspectives on future development and operation of co-living spaces were also provided by introducing more room type for 2 tenants or more instead of single bedroom since potential tenants preferred sharing living space with neighbors to enrich life experience. Also, tenancy period can be further shortened to say, 3-day tenancy or weekly tenancy or half-monthly tenancy, to allow flexibility for tenants to decide the tenancy period. Moreover, more common areas and booths should be set up in co-living space to enable more interaction and social gatherings to be held for co-living space tenants. There should also be more consultation services in different forms available to co-living space tenants to seek professional and construction advice in making life decisions.