David C. Thorns

Meanings of home for older home owners

Abstract The meaning of home has been the subject of much recent debate. The paper explores this debate and uses empirical data from New Zealand to demonstrate that the meaning of home reflects specific sets of historical and social circumstances and is multi‐dimensional. Key features include home as a cultural value, the investment potential of home and the impacts of gender on the meanings attached to home and home life. The paper explores the meanings of home amongst a group of older New Zealanders interviewed towards the end of 1993 and in early 1994, a time of considerable upheaval within state policy with respect to the elderly. For this group ‘home’ was synonymous with home ownership and reflected deeply held concerns with respect to security, family and continuity. These same concerns it is argued gave rise to the specific pattern of housing tenure, predominantly owner occupation, that developed within New Zealand. Out of these concerns for security and family continuity comes a focus upon bequeat...

New Zealand housing policy: Continuities and changes

Abstract The article reviews the development of New Zealands housing policy from the early years of the present century when the foundations were laid for an interventionist social democratic‐style housing policy. This policy has increasingly come under pressure through changes within New Zealands internal and external economy particularly during the 70s. In this decade and in the early 80s changes took place in the pattern of house building, the costs of construction, land and finance; leading to rapid escalations in prices and a growing problem of affordability. The change of Government in 1984 and the initiation of new policies by the Labour administration have produced a radical restructuring of the housing sector removing many of its protections through the de‐regulation of the financial market. The initial results have been rapidly rising interest rates together with shifts in patterns of building and in investments within financial institutions. These changes have led to a sharpening of divisions...

The production of homelessness: From individual failure to system inadequacies

Abstract The paper is concerned with an exploration of images, definitions and debates about the nature of homelessness in capitalist societies, its causes and consequences. The paper begins by considering images of homelessness and whether homelessness is a private individual trouble or a public issue and the result of inadequacies not of individuals but of the housing system. The paper then reviews the debate over definitions of homelessness examining material from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. The debate over definition demonstrates the necessity to reorganise research and analysis around a continuum of housing needs to place homelessness within a broader framework and prevent the marginalisation of the homeless both within society and within housing research. Further research should also examine the manner in which the homeless as a social group have been managed and therefore controlled. The paper then moves to a discussion of the characteristics and incidence of homelessness within ...

The role of housing inheritance in selected owner occupied societies (Britain, New Zealand, Canada)

Abstract The paper examines the debate regarding housing inheritance and its impact upon wealth transfers within selected owner occupier societies (Britain, New Zealand and Canada). The examination of current research data show how tenure changes and house price movements in the 1970s and 1980s have resulted in greater accumulation of wealth within owner occupied housing. This increase in wealth raises the question of the disbursement of such wealth on death through bequeathing, and the impact this has upon the recipients social position and lifestyle. Here, the data from the selected societies show that most transfers are within the immediate family and occur in mid‐life when the recipients are already established in their own housing, thus minimising the impact on their lives and social positions. The second part of the paper presents data on the nature of gifts and inheritances within Canada drawn from the 1986 Housing Expenditure Survey. These data show that the amounts of money transferred vary by ag...

Housing Markets and Sub-Markets: An Analysis of the Role of Financial Institutions in the Allocation of Housing

are managed and allocated to particular individuals and groups within the city. It must also be more theoretically informed than has much of the previous urban sociology. The major contribution of the ’new urban sociology’ is that it provides a new theoretical impetus and a major reorienting of the focus of the research from description and concentration upon spatial variables to processes and social variables (see Kilmartin and Thorns, 1978).

Beyond The Hype

Much has been made about whether anything is ‘new’ about the ‘New Economy,’ with the conclusion being that we now are a knowledge-based society. But in what sense, if at all, are we any more of a knowledge society now than we were in Neolithic times, the Renaissance, and th1e Industrial Revolution? What is the role of intellectual property (IP) and the intellectual commons in the process of innovation, growth and economic development? What role does technology and technological knowledge play both in the process of innovation and economic growth and in the protection of IP itself? To answer some of these questions requires a clear understanding of ‘the nature of the beast,’ what we mean by the New Economy, how we measure the level and growth of innovations, how we test for association/causation between knowledge (both embodied in human capital and disembodied) and any consequences it might generate (both good and bad), and how we protect IP.

A Tale of Two Cities: Marriage and Mobility in New Zealand

This paper seeks to explore the role that occupational mobility has played within New Zealand society. The paper begins by reviewing the approaches found within mobility research and how these have been taken up within New Zealand research. It notes the limited nature of present knowledge and research into patterns of mobility through time. The article then moves to discussing a method for the longi tudinal study of occupational mobility rates through marriage records. Data is presented based upon two Wellington and two Christchurch localities. From the analysis a number of tentative conclusions are drawn regarding both the overall rate of mobility over time and the distance travelled by the more mobile individuals. The analysis shows that there has always been a fairly high level of self-recruitment to occupational positions and a limited amount of long run mobility.

Symposium on Control of the City: Introduction: Urban Social Problems and Prospects

The ecological approach to the study of the city grew out of the work of the Chicago sociologists of the 1920’s, and led to both soci,al mapping and the study of social pathology (e.g., juvenile delinquency, suicide etc.). Through the writings of Wirth ( 1964), the ecological approach also led to the argument that certain ways of life were the product of urban components such as size, density and heterogeneity. The original formulations of Burgess (Burgess and Bogue, 1964) and others regarding the social areas of the city were refined through the development, first of social area analysis and latterly through the development of factorial ecology. The influence of this tradition of urban research upon the study of the Australian and New Zealand city can be seen in studies of Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Auckland and Christchurch (e.g., Jones, 1969; Timms, 1972; Johnson, 1973; and Burnley, 1974). A recent example of this approach which shows how the techniques have become refined, are the social atlases of Sydney and Melbourne. An important shift of emphasis in the social mapping of the city, from the residential areas and their social characteristics to the spatial distri.bution of resources such as medical and educational resources (Roper, 1970), can be detected in some of the most recent work. There has also been a linking of social mapping and the study of urban pathology (Dunstan, 1976; Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, 1974). Stemming from the work of Wirth has been an interest in identifying and studyi.ng the development of particular ways of life within the city, and the ways in which residential mobility to new suburban areas affects the ties of fami.lies, friends and neighbours. This work draws upon the ideas of the social network theorists such as Bott (1957) and is strongly influenced by the empirical work in the U.S.A. of Litwak (1969) and Caplow (1964), as can be seen in the work in the Australian context of Saha (1975), Martin (1967) and Lansbury ( 1970).

The Corporatist Thesis and the New Zealand State: A Rejoinder

In the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology (23, 1, March 1987) Nicholas Perry presents an interesting review article on ’The Corporatist Thesis and the New Zealand State’ (Perry, 1987). The article is interesting because, despite its importance, the role of the State in New Zealand has received very cursory treatment from local social commentators to date; although there are some notable exceptions (see, for example, Bedggood, 1980; Martin, 1981 ). In his review Perry includes a critique of the treatment of corporatism in our relatively recent text, Eclipse of Equality (Pearson and Thorns, 1983). Again we welcome comment. As Perry notes, ’Pearson and Thorns is a text to be argued with’. We heartily agree but would hope that argument would take place in a climate of careful reading of points for discussion and with a scholarly appreciation of the context within which those points were raised. Regrettably, we feel here that Perry is found rather wanting. Bluntly, he appears to have ignored the finer detail of our discussion of New Zealand politics, to have misrepresented or misunderstood a number of central points in the chapter (6) he chooses to focus on, and to have not read or ignored central issues which are raised in other parts of the

Book Reviews : AUSTRALIAN SOCIOLOGIES. By D.J. Austin. Sydney, George Allen and Unwin, 1984. 202 pp

The question of the complementarity or divergence of &dquo;Australian Sociologies&dquo; and their limited interaction is an intriguing one. It poses important questions such as, is sociology a discipline in which there is any real commonality? Are the research programmes pursued by the practitioners, on the one hand internally coherent and on the other quite separate and fundamentally opposed? The attempt by Austin to review Australian Sociology in terms of its major traditions allows some reflection on these broader questions often hidden beneath the eclecticism of much sociological debate. The task set is a bold one, beginning with Connell’s Marxist account of Australian history and society in which a ruling class is seen to create a capitalist framework, establish hegemony and reproduce itself through the education system and patterns of socialisation. From this beginning Austin moves on to show from the work of Higley on elites, and Broom and Jones on mobility how in fact their work provides a picture of Australian society which is not radically different from that of Connell. The difference, however, lies in the interpretation placed upon the data. This well illustrates the theory ladeness of empirical work. The theme of the responses to inequality is further pursued in a discussion of Australian Regional studies, although this would have been more accurately termed &dquo;locality studies&dquo;. Studies such as Wild’s Bradstow and Heathcote, Williams’ Open Cut and Kriegler’s Whyalla are used to examine modes of ideological domination and incorporation of workers, women and minorities into Australian Society. The final substantive chapter turns the focus upon the state and argues that Connell’s analysis fails to appreciate the central role played by the state within Australia’s version of capitalism. Austin finally concludes by arguing for a truly Australian Sociology to be grounded in an analysis of Australia’s distinctive political economy and to incorporate within that, regional, institutional and statistical studies. As in any such review there are elements of partiality in the discussion of the chosen material. Austin, for example, underestimates the extent to which political economists have developed analyses of Australia which place it within an international context and address the question of its particularities as a capitalist nation. Further, her treatment of regional studies would have been enhanced by a more explicit linking of the chosen studies into the theoretical perspective which inform the other three chapters. The discussion of social mobility in chapter 2 also fails to distinguish between the different roots and ideas shaping the traditions of mobility research in Britain and America but rather sees these are forming a common tradition.