private rented markets
Integrating Varieties of Capitalism, Welfare Regimes, and Housing at Multiple Levels and in the Long Run
The title conveys all the elements of this article. The typologies of capitalist economies, the typologies of welfare regimes, and the typologies of rental and owner-occupied housing regimes should be synchronised and combined, not selectively, but systematically. Integration will have to determine the multiple levels to which these typologies can be applied and on which they can interact. Owing to the persistence of housing institutions and buildings, a long-term (historical) view is also suggested – at all levels of analysis.
Towards a Political Economy of the Private Rental Sector
This article sets out a theoretical framework for the political economy of the private rental sector, with a particular focus on the question of inequality. It brings together three existing bodies of research. First, macro-accounts of social stratification and wealth inequality. Second, Marxian critiques of the antagonism between accumulation and social reproduction. Third, qualitative accounts of tenants’ experiences of housing inequality. The article synthesizes these three literatures to put forward a political economy approach which can capture the multi-dimensional and multi-scale nature of both ‘housing’ and ‘home’ in the private rental sector. In so doing, it contributes to recent research on ‘generation rent’, in particular the related class and generational inequalities, as well as wider debates on the political economy of housing.
Financialised Privatisation, Affordable Housing and Institutional Investment: The Case of England
Historically, public and affordable housing has been provided by the state in close conjunction with local authorities, public housing developers, and other social housing providers. Yet, affordable rental homes are now increasingly being managed, produced, or acquired by private equity firms and other institutional investors. In this contribution, we argue that ‘financialised privatisation’ is a helpful concept for understanding these shifts in state-finance compromises within the post-crisis affordable housing sector. Drawing on the case of England, we first discuss the major mechanisms of financialised privatisation and examine how an increasingly polymorphous affordable housing sector has emerged with a focus on multi-tenure and mixed-income housing tenures. We then discuss the possible challenges of this transformation and conclude that it remains very much a question whether a privately funded housing system will emerge that provides genuinely affordable housing and reduces inequalities.
Housing and Asset Based Stratification in the Enrichment Economy
This paper explores the ways in which housing wealth is producing new forms of differentiation among households. In doing so, it will argue that ‘asset based welfare’ is now better conceived as ‘asset based social stratification’ and that social class rather than generation remains the primary social divide. However, these class divides are increasingly shaped by the differential ability to accumulate and deploy primarily housing -based assets. These new forms of social (re) stratification will vary societally, temporally and spatially and are currently most evident in what can be described as older, mature home ownership societies. But similar developments and emerging fissures can be observed in newer, ultra home -ownership societies such as China and in the broader interconnections between the mobilization of family assets and the shift from consumer to market societies.
‘Generation Rent’ and Intergenerational Relations in The Era of Housing Financialisation
Home ownership has been in decline in a number of developed societies since the early-2000s driven, primarily, by declining entry among younger households who have been increasingly pushed into the rental sector. This trend has been associated with a growing intergenerational divide, or even conflict, and the emergence of ‘Generation Rent’. This paper explores the conditions surrounding diminishing access to owner-occupation among new households with a focus on the historic maturation of home ownership sectors, the restructuring of the political economy around financialized housing wealth and the inter-cohort dynamics surrounding the accumulation and transfer of housing wealth. The paper takes an international perspective drawing on evidence from two parallel, but contrasting cases: Japan and the UK. The analysis illustrates the interrelatedness of inter- and intra-generational inequalities, with the former reinforcing the latter. It also focuses on the role of families as both a moderator of generational inequity at the micro level as well as an enhancer of socioeconomic inequalities overall.
Delivering Social Housing: An Overview of the Housing Crisis in Dublin
This paper explores the responses to the housing crisis in Dublin, Ireland, by analysing recent housing policies promoted to prevent family homelessness. I argue that private rental market subsides have played an increasing role in the provision of social housing in Ireland. Instead of policies that facilitate the construction of affordable housing or the direct construction of social housing, current housing policies have addressed the social housing crisis by encouraging and relying excessively on the private market to deliver housing. The housing crisis has challenged governments to increase the social housing supply, but the implementation of a larger plan to deliver social housing has not been effective, as is evidenced by the rapid decline of both private and social housing supply and the increasing number of homeless people in Dublin.
Social Housing in Germany: An Inevitably Shrinking Sector?
More Social Housing? A Critical Analysis on Social Housing Provision in Spain
Reference Housing Costs for Adequate Dwellings in Ten European Capitals
Providing adequate housing at affordable prices remains a challenge for all welfare states. As part of a pilot project for developing a common methodology for reference budgets in the European Union, reference rents and other housing costs (energy, taxes, maintenance) corresponding to adequate dwellings for four hypothetical households living in nine capital regions of the EU were estimated. In this paper, we discuss the approach that we have taken. Quality criteria for adequate housing were derived from EU indicators of housing deprivation, and the recent UK Housing Standards Review. We used data from the Study of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) of 2012. Unsurprisingly, the estimates of reference rents vary strongly across capitals, reflecting cross-national differences in the level of the average rent. By contrast, other housing costs, which mainly reflect energy costs, vary much less.