Divorce and the Housing Movements of Owner-Occupiers: A European Comparison

Abstract

Divorce usually carries a range of economic consequences for both men and women, the housing situation of the ex-partners being among the most important ones. So far, however, the housing consequences of this life event, and in particular the way these are influenced by institutional arrangements, have been somewhat of a neglected topic. This paper focuses on one aspect of this process, more specifically the impact of divorce on tenure changes of homeowners, using comparative panel data for 12 European countries. It is concluded that although divorce significantly raises the odds of experiencing a tenure change for homeowners in all countries under consideration, this process is fairly similar across European welfare states. While institutional arrangements mitigating the economic consequences of divorce for women do not seem to explain much variation between countries, cross-national differences in tenure changes for homeowners are partly influenced by social housing policies and the extent of family support.

Keywords:

• Comparative housing
• welfare state
• housing policy
• consequences of divorce
• panel analysis
• housing mobility

Acknowledgements

ECHP-data were made available through the Panel Study of Belgian Households (PSBH), University of Antwerp. EUROSTAT bears no responsibility for the analyses and interpretations presented here. The author would like to thank Pascal De Decker, the participants of the Second Workshop on the Economic and Social Consequences of Partnership Dissolution (3–4 November 2006, Cologne), and two anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions. Data on single parent allowances were provided by Maike van Damme.

Notes

¹ In Belgium for example, Turkish and Moroccan immigrants have been forced into buying low-quality inner-city housing as access to the private rental market is limited due to high rents and/or reluctant landlords, while the social housing sector in Belgium is relatively small and plagued by long waiting lists (De Decker & Laureys, 2006).

² This equivalence scale attributes a weight of 1 to the first adult in the household, each additional adult is given a weight of 0.5 and each child younger than 14 years of age is attributed a weight of 0.3.