Housing tenure and educational opportunity in the Paris metropolitan area

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between housing tenure and educational opportunities in the Paris metropolitan area. Using census microdata, we show that the middle classes face uneasy trade-offs between housing tenure and access to attractive educational resources. Living in high-quality school contexts is associated with renting, whereas access to homeownership mostly unfolds in poor-performing school areas. This tension is not observed for other social strata. Based on fieldwork conducted in Paris suburbs, we highlight the interweaving of middle-class housing and school choices. Some families may use the rental sector to live close to attractive schools. In mixed neighbourhoods, homeowners either choose the local school or opt for circumvention strategies. Because of the dramatic increase of housing prices, the interplay between housing tenure and the unequal geography of education is crucial to understand social stratification and social mobility patterns in large cities, particularly among the middle classes, as well as to improve public policies aimed at reducing housing and school inequalities.

Keywords:

• Housing tenure
• education
• inequality
• segregation
• middle classes

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous referees as well as the editors of Housing Studies for their valuable comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 5% households are accommodated for free by their relatives or employer.

2 According to the last French housing survey (2013), 77% of households are eligible for public housing. Their income falls below the highest public housing income ceiling (Laferrère et al. 2017).

3 The Paris MA is composed of inner Paris, close suburbs (divided into three départements: Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne) and outer suburbs.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by a public grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the ‘Investissements d’Avenir’ program LIEPP (grant reference: ANR-11-LABX0091, ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02). Authors had access to the French census microdata through the Secured Data Centre (CASD, Insee) as part of the PARISEG project supported by the ANR (grant reference: ANR-10-EQPX-17). Quentin Ramond receives support from the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies as part of his postdoctoral research (COES ANID/FONDAP/15130009).

Notes on contributors

Quentin Ramond

Quentin Ramond is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for social conflict and cohesion Studies (COES), Santiago de Chile. He obtained his PhD in sociology from Sciences Po Paris, France (2019). His research interests include urban sociology, housing markets, sociology of education, public policy and social stratification, with a strong interest for the middle classes. In the frame of his postdoctoral research at COES, he is currently examining the effects of housing tenure status (homeowners, renters) on residential segregation and inequalities of educational opportunity with a comparative perspective between Chile and France.

Marco Oberti

Marco Oberti is a professor of sociology at Sciences Po Paris, France and a research fellow at the Observatoire sociologique du changement (CNRS-FNSP). His most recent work concerns social classes and urban and educational inequalities, with a focus on segregation. He combines quantitative and qualitative methods to identify the causes and effects of segregation and the modes of cohabitation of social groups in urban space. He also works on forms of ‘educational requalification’ in French working-class suburbs (banlieues) as well as widening participation programs in education. A cross-national comparative perspective (Brazil, Italy, U.S.) underlies all of his research.