Christian Lennartz

Returning to the parental home: Boomerang moves of younger adults and the welfare regime context

Returns to the parental home represent a dramatic housing career interruption that can have significant social and economic implications. Interaction of individual characteristics with turning point shocks, such as unemployment or partnership dissolution, are key triggering events; however, housing disruptions are further embedded within variegated social, cultural and institutional contexts. Fundamental is the nature of the welfare regime, explaining norms surrounding co-residence as well as the amount and type of resources available. Through analyses using the Eurostat Longitudinal Survey on Income and Living Conditions, the research establishes a foundational understanding of how factors at both the individual as well as institutional and socio-cultural level moderate young adults’ housing interruptions across Europe. The results showed a significant welfare regime effect in outcomes of returned co-residence as well as evidence of differentiations across regimes in how individual characteristics and the experience of turning points related to returns. Higher return propensities were found among more familialistic contexts of Southern Europe and New Member States, while lower likelihoods were evident in the face of stronger state support and practices of earlier autonomy in Social Democratic and, to a lesser degree, intermediate Conservative regime contexts.

Asset-based Welfare and Social Investment: Competing, Compatible, or Complementary Social Policy Strategies for the New Welfare State?

Abstract More recently, two key developments have been observed in the comparative social policy literature: on the one hand, the implementation of a proactive “social investment strategy”, either alongside or in replacement of their established social security programs, and on the other hand, a concomitant shift towards the increased macroeconomic and political importance of private property assets – and homeownership in particular – in defining the economic well-being of individuals. At first glance, it seems that we are dealing with two conflicting policy paradigms here; after all, social investment relies on stable or even expansive welfare states, while the accumulation of private property wealth as a welfare resource seems to realign better with the notion of welfare state retrenchment. This contribution aims to illustrate that the fault lines between the two policy paradigms are, however, not that clear-cut. Based on comparative national-level statistics for all OECD member states in the 1995–2007 pre-crisis period and theoretical reasoning the paper argues that the two approaches may be understood as compatible welfare readjustment strategies, which have opened out into a more radical form of productive welfare capitalism, particularly in the liberal and social-democratic welfare states in North-Western Europe.

Market structures of rental housing: conceptualising perfect competition in mixed local rental markets

Governments in many countries have required social housing providers to operate more in terms of market principles and engage in commercial activities. At the same time, public authorities have also tried to strengthen the role of the private rental sector in the provision of housing for low-income households and homeless people. As a result, the once clear demarcation between the activities of social and private landlords appears to be shifting, which has arguably led to increased competitive pressures on both landlord groups. In an attempt to establish a more meaningful analytical approach to the concept of competition between rental tenures, this paper sets out an idea of a perfectly competitive rental market structure. The theoretical part of the paper is guided by questions surrounding how one can translate established economic theories of competitive markets to rental housing and what a competitive market structure is in context of competition between social and market renting. In the second part of the paper, the above theoretical concept is applied to two local housing markets: Coventry in England and Breda in the Netherlands. Here, I will provide evidence on how and why rental housing in Breda seems to be more competitive than in Coventry. The application of the model will highlight the value of the present approach.

Housing careers, intergenerational support and family relations

Abstract The home and family have always been mutually embedded, with the former central to the realization and reproduction of the latter. More recently, this mutuality has taken on a more critical salience as realignments in housing markets, employment and welfare states in many countries have worked together to undermine housing access for new households. In this context, families have become increasingly involved in smoothening the routes of young adults members up the ‘housing ladder’ into home ownership. Intergenerational support appears to have become much more widespread and not just confined to familialistic welfare regimes. The role of intergenerational support for housing remains, however, highly differentiated across countries, cities and regions, as well as uneven between social and income classes. This introduction to the Special Issue explores how the role of housing wealth transfers has impacted the renegotiation of the generational contract. In doing so, it sets the scene for the articles that follow, each of which contribute significantly to advancing understanding of housing as a key driver of contemporary social relations and inequalities.

The housing careers of younger adults and intergenerational support in Germany’s ‘society of renters’

Abstract Through narrative interviews with younger adults and their parents, this paper explores how the housing transitions of younger adults, both within the rental sector and into homeownership, are shaped through intergenerational intra-family support in Germany’s society of renters. Our findings highlight the profound qualitative differences between regular transfers for establishing and retaining residential independence in the rental sector and inter vivos gifts for house purchase. Where the former support type is given and taken unconditionally, transfers for house purchase follow a different logic and carry different meanings. Being a necessary condition for property acquisition at young age, they have the power to completely rebalance family relations and undermine younger adults’ autonomy accordingly. In an aggregate perspective, our study further suggests increasing socio-spatial inequalities within the younger generation which run along both class and spatial origin, sharply dividing the housing market opportunities of ‘original Berliners’ and those who have moved to the city from more affluent regions in Germany.

Rivalry between social and private landlords in local rental housing markets

Social housing providers in many advanced economies have been directed towards market-orientated and commercial business models, whereas the scope of the private rental sector has been increasingly expanded to the provision of housing for low-income households. Where these developments coincided, the demarcation between the activities of social and private landlords has blurred, with the result of increasing competitive pressure on both groups. This paper sheds light on the behavioural aspects of competition by introducing the concept of inter-landlord rivalry in local rental housing markets. Drawing on data from 36 in-depth interviews with social and private landlords in Coventry/England and Breda/the Netherlands, this study shows that existing perceptions of rivalry among most landlords are exceptional in low-income renting but pronounced in more expensive, commercial rental segments. The paper will demonstrate that these perceptions are highly subjective and non-reciprocal. Moreover, competitive perceptions and interactions are strongly affected by political and market structural settings, and appear to be dependent on the trade-off between the social mission and commercial goals of individual housing associations in the social housing sector.