HOUWEL · Housing Markets and Welfare State Transformations: How Family Housing Property is Reshaping Welfare Regimes

This project investigates how growing reliance on housing markets and family property wealth in meeting welfare and security needs is transforming contemporary welfare states. Home ownership normally constitutes a primary family node for the delivery and exchange of shelter, informal care and asset wealth, reducing household dependency on the state. Different modes of housing thereby influence welfare system development overall. In recent decades, increasing market values enhanced perceptions of housing property as a form of social security. Meanwhile, governments have encouraged home purchase as a means for households to accumulate housing assets, thereby insuring themselves against hardship. Understanding the role of housing tenure transformations in welfare system restructuring or the impact of housing markets on welfare regimes is, however, poorly developed. This study breaks new ground by examining how housing markets and welfare systems interact in different regime contexts. It focuses on welfare outcomes of housing as a private good and how housing sector differences influence both macro-state welfare arrangements and micro-household practices. This will advance understanding of how housing markets assume prominent roles in welfare system pathways and influence social stratification. This study will be realized through three sub-projects carried out in six countries that represent contemporary housing and welfare regimes: England, Germany, Romania, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan. 1) institutional studies and macro statistical comparisons will evaluate how frameworks of social and welfare security shape, and are shaped by, housing systems