A review of "Shared housing, shared lives : everyday experiences across the lifecourse", edited by Sue Heath, Katherine Davies, Gemma Edwards and Rachel M. Scicluna

Book review of: Shared housing, shared lives: everyday experiences across the lifecourse, By Sue Heath, Katherine Davies, Gemma Edwards and Rachel M. Scicluna, Abingdon, Routledge, 2018, 144 pp., ISBN 9781138673533. Heath and Cleaver’s (2003) seminal text on shared housing in the Global North inspired a burgeoning new area of geographical and sociological inquiry. Returning to this original agenda over 15 year later, Heath along with coauthors Davies, Edwards and Scicluna highlight the renewed importance of research into sharing domestic spaces with non-kin. In the 15 years since ‘Young, free and single?: Twenty-somethings and household change’ drew attention to the new reality that youth in the Global North were often sharing housing – the motivations and demographics of ‘sharers’ have changed in profound ways. An increasingly diverse cohort of people are sharing – reflecting the myriad social, economic, cultural and political challenges that exist around accessing housing in urban contexts in particular. Housing market crises, precarious labour conditions and changing family structures are just some of the factors that have given rise to the ubiquity of shared housing.