Housing Policy as a Lever for Change? The Politics of Welfare, Assets and Tenure

Abstract

The housing tenure structure has long been associated with different forms of welfare state capitalism in Western Europe. However, with the rise of owner-occupancy, this association has not been so straightforward. An alternative view is to view housing policies that promote owner-occupancy for households to acquire assets, as an attempt by the state to reform social welfare systems. The politics of welfare reform are related to the discourses of homeownership ideology. The ownership of (housing) assets agenda serves as a means to change the relationship between state, market and individual households. This view is mostly based on the British experience and this paper seeks to broaden it by examining the Netherlands and Spain. The paper shows differences, but also that housing policies play an important role in driving towards or maintaining market-dominated solutions. Housing is used to either reorient towards or maintain a welfare system where asset ownership and market dependency is deemed more appropriate than secure income and public expenditure.

Keywords:

• Homeownership
• asset-based welfare state
• comparative housing
• housing policy
• the Netherlands
• Spain

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Peter Malpass, Willem Boterman, Fenne Pinkster, Brooke Sykes, the participants of the ENHR working group conference ‘Building on Home Ownership’, OTB Research Institute at Delft University of Technology (November, 2008), four anonymous referees as well as Wim Ostendorf and Sako Musterd for their comments and suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply.