12 Table 1.7 demonstrates that the type of occupation (a separate or a communal apartment) is an important factor influencing tenants' decisions to privatize. On average, about 40% of the households residing in separate apartments decided to privatize them, while only 5% of those residing in communal apartments decided to privatize their rooms. Naturally enough, as tenants may prihatize free of charge only once in a lifetime, many people are reluctant to waste this right on communal housing. Furthermore, the survey findings indicate that communal dwellings are occupied not only by elderly people but also by single, divorced or separated persons who, unable to pay for better-quality housing, are often on waiting lists for new housing. Therefore, a privatized communal apartment makes no sense unless an outsider (realtor, company, the city) gets hold of the apartment and offers the tenants new, separate dwellings.

Table 1.7 also demonstrates how the quality of dwelling affects privatization. Fully 65% of the households living in high-quality buildings (Stalin-era and modern brick) have privatized their apartments. In the central part of the city, this figure rises to 75%/o. A substantial difference is observed in the rates of privatization of apartments in high-quality and low-quality buildings equidistant from the city center.

The closer a dwelling is to the city center, the more eager the tenants are to privatize. A territorial trend in privatization is obvious: 60 to 65% of the households living in separate apartments in the city center and adjacent districts have privatized their apartments. What we observe here is a cumulative effect of several factors: first, the predoininantly high quality of housing; second, the prestige of an address in the center; third, a high proportion of elderly people who privatize so as to be able to bequeath housing to children or grandchildren; and, fourth, the higher educational standard of residents there (the last two factors will be discussed in greater detail below).

_b. The demographic characteristics of the occupants_ also influences the willingness to privatize. As Table 1.8 demonstrates, pensidners as a group demonstrate the highest level of privatization (62-70%); childless families average 38-39%; and families with children are least likely to live in privatized housing (26-31%). The possibility of leaving housing to heirs is a major factor in pensioners' decision to privatize their apartments. And conversely, households with no such prospects display a much weaker interest. The implications of this tendency for the housing market in Russia are significant: because of the preponderance of pensioners among owners of privatized apartments, the constraints on the housing market in Russia are even greater than the natural linits that would normally be suggested by the levels of home ownership. Retired people are highly unlikely to move from their apartments (whether privatized or not), and thus, the real estate they occupy essentially drops out of the housing market for the duration of its occupation by the pensioners.

Table **1.8.** Housing privatization by demographic categories

|(% of Moscow households that privatized before 1995.)|
|---|
|Demographic category<br>%_<br>_|
|single<br>70.3|
|husband and wife<br>62.1|
|Singl. worg<br>ae<br>.peop<br>le...|
|childless<br>38.1|
|childless + parents<br>38.8|
|with children<br>28.1|
|with children + parents<br>30.8|
|Marr-ied<br>working agisi**E** sEEe<br>p ole-|
|childless<br>38.8|
|childless + parents<br>37.3|
|with children<br>26.3|
|with children + parents<br>27.2|
|-.AverefoE i<br>37.|

**Source: The** Moscow Longitudinal Household Survey, December 1994.