John Doling

Housing Policies and the Little Tigers: How Do They Compare with Other Industrialised Countries?

This paper locates the housing policies of the little tiger countries-Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan-in the policy regimes approach found in the literature dealing with other industrialised countries. It begins by establishing three regime types-liberal, communist and corporatist-describing different balances of market and state in the development, construction and consumption phases of housing provision. Building on a discussion of the general approach in the little tiger countries to economic and social policy, and particularly of the nature and extent of state intervention in their housing policies, it proposes that together they represent a fourth regime type, one that can be characterised as corporatist in production and liberal in consumption.

The Family Life Cycle and Housing Choice

In the literature of housing choice and residential location the stage in the family life cycle (FLC) has been frequently cited as a significant variable in the relationship between households and their houses . In its most symmetrical form (see Lansing, 1964), this relationship describes the typical newly married couple as firstly demanding a small dwelling, in a high density neighbourhood, close to the city centre. The statistical regularities upon which this is based, however, commonly show that with age and an increase in family size the demand comes for the space of suburban living. Finally, when family size decreases as children reach adulthood and leave the parental home, there is often a return to smaller dwellings at higher densities and closer to the city centre. In some studies of the FLC and housing choice, however, the spatial element has not been identified (Beyer, 1958 ; Cullingworth, 1965), whilst in others it has been recognised that the downward adjustment in space when family size decreases is not always completed (Winnick, 1957; Needleman, 1965) . This latter amendment is, in fact, further supported by the observations, on the one hand, that older families tend to be less mobile (Rossi, 1955 ; Cullingworth, 1968) and, on the other, that few people move in order to economise on space (Foote, 1960; Donnison, 1961 ; Nationwide Building Society, 1970). Explanations for these FLC relationships have largely been based on the apparent association of changes in preferences or objective needs with changes in household structure, such that larger families are deemed to naturally need and demand larger houses, for example (Beyer, 1958 ; Donnison, 1961 ; Alonso, 1964 ; Cullingworth, 1965). However, it is possible, and Winnick (1957, p . 89)

A Union of Home Owners

In 1945 home ownership was a minority tenure in each of what are now the 25 countries of the European Union. By 2003, home ownership was the majority tenure in every country except Germany. However, the exact enumeration of home owners in each country, and hence comparison between countries is sometimes difficult largely due to the absence of any systematically collected and fully harmonized set of data across the countries. For one thing, surveys of the housing stock by tenure have not been carried out at regular periods in each country. In addition, definitions of what constitutes home ownership differ from country to country. For example, Stephens argues that, because it is a tradable asset, Swedish co-operative housing could be thought of as a form of home ownership, a definition that would raise the overall home ownership level in that country to around 60 per cent (Stephens, 2003). Yet, even without that, the home ownership rate across the 15 pre-2004 member states had by 2003 reached 63.5 per cent, and in the ten, newer member states 66.7 per cent, as shown in Table 1a and 1b. In total, there are in the order of 136 million European home owning households in the EU25. Moreover, if Germany which has almost a fifth of the entire EU housing stock and the proportionately smallest home ownership sector, is excluded from the calculations the overall EU proportion in home ownership increases from 63.9 per cent to 68.4 per cent. In the light of this evidence it may be appropriate to refer to a Union of Home owners. This Union of Home owners is the key starting point for the collection of articles published in this themed edition of the European Journal of Housing Policy. Interest in the growth of home ownership across first the 15 individual EU countries and now the further ten accession countries is increasingly well developed but the emphasis has typically focused either on understanding the formulation and implementation of housing policy or the structure and operation of the housing and mortgage markets. This themed edition has a different and distinctive focus in that its concern is largely with some key implications of the growth of home ownership, predominately as

Housing Neighbourhoods and Urban Regeneration

It is widely suggested that recent policies for physically and economically restructuring the cores of cities have often not brought benefits to the residents of low-income urban neighbourhoods. This issue is examined using two case-studies—the cities of Birmingham and Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It is argued that, because of housing market segmentation and the dominance of social renting in deprived neighbourhoods around the urban core, regeneration policies in the UK do not generally have a negative effect on these neighbourhoods through gentrification and displacement. On the other hand, because of labour market segmentation, they do not have a positive influence because economic opportunities are not shared by disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The paper goes on to examine City Challenge, a regeneration initiative in England which generally focuses more directly on deprived urban residential neighbourhoods than did the property-led commercial regeneration of the 1980s. The paper discusses what kinds of policies might improve the access of residents of deprived areas to economic opportunities, and how these relate to housing policies.

Home ownership and early retirement: European experience in the 1990s

Throughout the 1990s the general pattern acrossthe EU member states was of expanding homeownership sectors and of falling labourparticipation rates amongst older workers,particularly men. Using macro-level data, thepaper sets out to explain national differencesin participation rates, taken as a proxymeasure of early retirement. Whereas itindicates the statistical importance of anumber of trends – specifically labour marketconditions and government social policies – thepaper particularly focuses on the possible roleof housing tenure. It presents evidenceconsistent with the proposition that, onceowned outright, home ownership may offer theability to live rent-free and to create apension and thus facilitate early retirement. In acting as a sort of individualised providentfund, it may both give some welfare states adistinctive character as well as contribute tothe early retirement of large numbers of peoplefrom the labour market. The paper explores anumber of methodological and policy issuesarising from the analysis.

Testing Home Ownership as the Cornerstone of Welfare: Lessons from East Asia for the West

In recent years, one driver behind the promotion of home ownership in Western countries has been the belief that owner-occupied housing assets provide a means to build up individual welfare security, potentially offsetting pension shortfalls in retirement. In contrast, many developed East Asian societies have both long focussed on advancing ‘asset’ or ‘property-based welfare’ systems as well as experienced the late-1990s Asian Financial Crisis which forced changes in housing and welfare practices. This paper examines how home ownership and asset-based welfare fared in these contexts and the lessons to be learned. It begins by considering the role of owner-occupied housing assets in different welfare regimes before empirically examining how asset-based welfare systems have been realized. It then considers how East Asian home ownership and asset-based welfare systems have stood-up to economic crises. The final section considers what the East Asian experiences contribute to an understanding of the housing assets–welfare relationship.

De-commodification and Welfare: Evaluating Housing Systems

This article adopts an operational definition of de-commodification that emphasises its significance for the welfare of individuals. It explores what the definition indicates about different forms of home ownership and renting found in industrialised countries. The evaluations are brought together to derive quantitative estimates of the degree of de-commodification found in the housing systems of Britain, Sweden and Germany. Deriving the degrees of de-commodification of particular forms of housing and of entire national housing systems is a complex process. They cannot be read-off from knowledge of, say, tenure, and conclusions may differ from those generally assumed.

A European Housing Policy

Abstract Formally, the European Union (EU) should not, and does not, formulate housing policy, this being a function lodged with the individual member states. Against the background of the Lisbon objectives and the Kok report, however, the present paper argues that the EU has actually appeared to promote a housing strategy for the member states based on increasing home ownership rates. Drawing on a range of evidence, the paper examines what might be referred to as a stealth housing policy. It does so from the points of view of both whether the housing system objectives are likely to be achieved and, if they are, what they might mean for some aspects of the EUs wider economic and social objectives. Finally, the paper considers whether a more explicit EU interest in housing policy would be desirable.

Meeting the income needs of older people in East Asia: using housing equity

ABSTRACT In the welfare systems of East Asian countries, the income, care and other needs of older people have traditionally been met less by state social protection measures and more by the family, supported by what might be termed the first homeownership strategy: widening access to home ownership as a physical, emotional and financial basis of family wellbeing. Recent political, economic and demographic developments, however, have undermined this model. Examining policy responses in the three most advanced East Asian economies, Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but also with reference to Taiwan, the paper identifies common tendencies in the ways in which the ability to use home ownership has been strengthened. As a second strategy, home ownership has been used to reduce geographical constraints on family support, while, as a third strategy, governments have introduced mechanisms through which older people are able to realise some or all of the equity they have built up through the housing market. These mechanisms include, moving down market or even converting to a rental solution, as well as forms of reverse-mortgage products, some available through private financial institutions and some involving state-organised and state-operated devices.

Housing East Asia: socioeconomic and demographic challenges

Housing and home ownership has been strongly embedded in East Asian socioeconomic and policy models. Based on the primacy of national economic growth objectives, it was promoted as a means of, on the one hand, contributing directly to economic growth through the motor of the construction industry, and, on the other, supporting a low-taxation, low-public-expenditure economy with minimal social protection measures based on the support of the family. In recent years, however, this housing pillar is facing new social, economic, political and demographic challenges, including a decline in the political authority of authoritarian states, the undermining of traditional developmental logic, fragmentation of families and household types and the growing volatility of housing markets. Most of these have been generated or exacerbated by intensified globalization and economic crises in recent years.