HOW HOUSING MARKETS CHANGED THE WORLD. Family Property Wealth and the New Welfare State

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1 HOW HOUSING MARKETS CHANGED THE WORLD Family Property Wealth and the New Welfare State

2 OVERVIEW Housing and the Social Sciences The Global Housing Boom Over-exuberance? Restructuring of Late Capitalism Realignment of Families Toward Housing Property as Welfare Security Restructuring the Welfare State How well or HOUWEL?

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5 PAST ASSUMPTIONS Housing market position a function of income and/or wealth Post war growth in home ownership considered either a sign of increasing affluence or politically driven? Made better citizens/parents Improved neighborhoods A bulwark to bolshevism The property owning democracy & democratization of housing wealth Housing tenure not regarded as important to welfare regimes (the Wobbly Pillar )

6 RECENT TRANSFORMATIONS The state promotion of homeownership Social ageing & pension pressures Global capital - local housing markets (Aalbers, 2008; Forrest, 2008) Tapping into the home to drive macro economic growth (Watson, 2010) Marketization of the home & financialization of the self (Langley, 2008)

7 THE GLOBAL HOUSING BOOM: CONVERGENCE AND VARIEGATION Developing and Post-socialist economies housing privatization a prescription for economic development: China & East Europe Corporatist and Social democratic regimes housing commodification as a means to reduce state costs and drive growth: e.g. Netherlands, Sweden, France Liberal economies even higher home ownership targets, looser lending conditions, less affordability, more schemes to help marginal buyers: UK, Australia, USA

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9 FOR A WHILE THE HOUSING BOOM FELT LIKE THIS

10 AND THEN!

11 THE RISE AND FALL OF PROPERTY VALUES

12 WHY THE CRISIS? Imbalance between the structure of house prices and their fundamental value? Mistakes made by overleveraged borrowers and irresponsible lenders? Or shifting dynamics of housing markets and family property wealth in the restructuring of welfare regimes?

13 HOUSING AND WELFARE! Housing plays multiple and multifaceted welfare roles Welfare effects bigger when the home is a market property Making households more or less dependent on market or state The cutting edge of neo-liberal policy re-regulation

14 HOME OWNERSHIP AS A PILLAR OF WELFARE The Wobbly Pillar or Cornerstone: Consider housing a component of welfare outside the welfare state (Malpass, 2008) The Really Big Trade Off: Housing - welfare trade off in high home owner societies (Kemeny, 1981, 1992, 2005) Home Ownership as Imputed Income: non-mortgaged housing can substitute for pensions in old age (Castles, 1998, Toussaint and Elsinga 2010)

15 NEO-LIBERAL WELFARE STATE RESTRUCTURING Asset-Based Welfare (Sherraden, 1991) Privatized Keynesianism: (Crouch, 2009) Worlds of Residential Capitalism (Schwartz and Seabrook 2009) housing finance systems can connect people to global capital flow and interest rates in a more direct way than tax systems, public debt, or employment. But the degree of decommodification and stratification this connection produces varies by the level of owner occupancy and the structure of housing finance markets (p242)

16 HOW ARE SOCIETIES DIFFERENT EXACTLY, AND WHAT FACTORS AFFECT HOUSING WELFARE RELATIONSHIPS? ARE HOUSING SYSTEMS AND FAMILY MODES OF HOUSING CONSUMPTION RESHAPING WELFARE REGIMES?

17 THE FAMILY

18 Families, Housing and Welfare K.I.P.P.ers 1995, 10% of UK first-time-buyers received parental help, by 2006 this was 38% % of year-olds were helping children with rent or house deposits and 11% helping their own parents Growth of Parasite Singles S.K.I.ers Inheritance: altruistic or selfish Intergenerational connections and divides Family formation and fragmentation

19 THREE GENERATIONAL HOUSEHOLDS AND HOUSEHOLDS IN RENT-FREE ACCOMMODATION

20 Housing Careers

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22 THE HOME

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24 Unfit housing HOUSING STOCK Atlantic Scandinavian Continental South Europe NEE CEE SEE Total Owners

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27 RELEASING EQUITY

28 THE HOUSING SYSTEM

29 DISTRIBUTION OF HOME OWNERSHIP

30 HOUSING TENURE STRUCTURE

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32 MORTGAGE DEBT AS PERCENTAGE OF GDP 100% 80% 60% % 20% 0%

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34 THE HOUWEL STUDY Project Two Meanings and Practices Project One: Regimes and Systems Methods: institutional studies, multi-level analyses Personnel: PI and Postdoc Methods: qualitative field-studies Personnel: PI and PhD Student One Project Three Security and Inequality Methods: advanced regression (panel data) Personnel: Postdoc and PhD Student Two Macro Micro

35 Regimes Types Liberal Social Democratic Corporatist Mediterranean Transitional Developmental/Productivist Research Contexts England University of Birmingham Netherlands UvA, Amsterdam Germany Humboldt University, Berlin Italy University di Trento Via Verdi, Trento Romania University of Bucharest Japan Kobe University

36 Home Ownership Rate Mortgage Debt to GDP Ratio (%) HOUWEL Partner England* High 70% 50.6% 83.3% Birmingham University, Birmingham, England Germany Low 43% 51.9% 47.7% Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany Italy Very-high 80% 7.8% 19.8% University of Trento Via Verdi, Trento, Italy Japan High 62% 35.9% 38%** Kobe University, Kobe, Japan Netherlands Moderate 56% 60.8% 101.0% Base Country Romania*** Super-High 1.4% 5.6% University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

37 PROJECT ONE: REGIMES & SYSTEMS Questions How have different welfare regimes interacted with housing systems as a basis of welfare provision? How has the restructuring of housing economies reoriented welfare regimes? Methods Pathways and Constellations: Institutional studies and multilevel international comparisons HOUWEL

38 PROJECT TWO: MEANINGS & PRACTICES Questions How are families and households orientated by and towards housing property as a basis of welfare? How are practices, cultures and values shaped by, & contribute to, local interactions between housing & society? Methods Qualitative field studies in six countries: purposive sample of owners and some renters with intergenerational matching HOUWEL

39 PROJECT THREE: SECURITY & INEQUALITY Questions How are shifting markets conditions reshaping welfare arrangements and social inequalities in different contexts? How does housing market position interact with non-housing variables in relation to household economic security? Methods Quantitative micro-analyses: advance regression techniques with national & cross-national (household & panel surveys) HOUWEL

40 Aims & Ambitions Provide rich & detailed comparative insight on housing in different developed societies Explain implications of housing system & regime shifts: the place of family property Contextualize & resituate policy debates Understand the new welfare state!

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42 THANK YOU!