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A STUDY into domestic living trends around the world has discovered that the ‘feeling of home’ is moving beyond just four walls.
The Life at Home report, commissioned by IKEA Group, which recently opened a major store in Bahrain, revealed that 29 per cent of people globally believe that there are other places that make them feel more at home than the spaces they live in.
“We were curious to understand why some people say they feel more at home away from home than others,” said Maria Jonsson, Macro Insights Leader at IKEA Group. “This report seeks to get to the heart of what creates that elusive feeling of home, and how we can all make this feeling easier to achieve where we live.”
The research also showcased a significant increase in this feeling amongst people who live in cities, where the figure grew from 20 per cent in 2016 to 35 per cent in 2018.
The five core emotional needs that people found important to capture a feeling of home were privacy, comfort, ownership, security and belonging. However, this may not always be the case depending on the living situation. Almost 62 per cent of people living with friends believe it’s important that their home provides them with a feeling of ownership, but only 34 per cent of them say that their homes live up to expectations.
The report also explores how major global changes such as urbanisation, digitalisation and the rise of technology have impacted on how people feel. Lack of living space and privacy is often cited as a challenge, and as cities are set to grow exponentially in the coming years almost 48 per cent of people say they feel anxious about their homes becoming smaller in years to come.
Maria added: “For a large number of people, home just doesn’t feel like home any more. We discovered a new behaviour, where people use a network of spaces and places, both within and beyond the four walls, as part of their homemaking experience. We believe that this expanded notion of life at home gives people more opportunities to create the feeling of home, no matter where or how they live.”
For example, one in 36 per cent of people say that they shower somewhere other than their own bathroom multiple times a week and 23 per cent eat with friends or family outside their home environment at the same rate.
The boundary between work and home also continues to blur with more than 68 per cent of urban dwellers bringing work home and 25 per cent of them saying they do it every day. Globally, 23 per cent of people say they work in the home more than they used to.
This shift in attitudes and activities has led to a generation of people who want to redefine where they live. Six in 10 people say they’d like to create a home that’s different from the one they were brought up in and 64 per cent say they would rather live in a small home in a great location compared to a big home in a less ideal location.
Although, if home really is where the heart is, at least IKEA believes it has all the pretty furnishings to make it wholesome.
