Stephan Köppe

Britain's new housing precariat: housing wealth pathways out of homeownership

Most Britons aspire to own their home outright before retirement. This article looks at the rocky road from the edges of ownership, where home buyers are trying to cope with pressing spending needs and mortgage repayments, towards outright ownership. Using the British Household Panel Study (BHPS), sequence analysis is applied to describe the housing wealth pathways of mortgagors as they strive to achieve outright ownership. The study pays particular attention to the risks that mortgagors are exposed to, and the tactics they employ as mortgage managers. A minority is trapped on the edges of ownership. Multinomial regression model estimates suggest that this new housing precariat is more likely to be female, younger, experience a relationship breakup, high mortgage–income ratios and have an additional child in the household. For this housing precariat, homeownership is not a safety net; it becomes a liability that exposes mortgagors to new social risks. These emerging social risks warrant policy intervention targeted on vulnerable home owner groups.

Passing it on: inheritance, coresidence and the influence of parental support on homeownership and housing pathways

Abstract The family home is often the single most valuable asset, when it is passed down generations. In recent years, this pathway towards homeownership has become more complex. Young people are increasingly depending on their parents, both financially (deposit) and in-kind (guarantor, living rent-free at parental home), to acquire their first home. This paper contributes to this debate by investigating the influence of bequests and in-kind generational transfers on housing wealth pathways. Based on the British Household Panel Study, this paper shows that receiving an inheritance seems less relevant than other socio-demographic control variables. Still life-time renters are significantly missing out on inheritances. However, young people who are living with their parents are benefiting from this in-kind support in the long term and are able to purchase their first home earlier than independent mortgagers who are saving up for a deposit while renting. These results are discussed in the wider context of housing policy, welfare and generational support.

Welfare user roles in a conservative welfare state. Are Germans citizens, consumers or co-producers?

Many welfare states have embraced choice and market mechanisms since the 1990s. With respect to welfare users, it has been argued that this led to a change from citizens to consumers. This paper challenges this observation and discusses changes of welfare user roles in the German welfare state. The main argument rests on the assumption that user roles are much more complex and include claimants and co-producers in addition to citizens and consumers. Based on this heuristic model of multiple user roles, empirical evidence for user roles in pension insurance, health care and schools is presented. Indeed, we observe a shift towards consumers in many fields of welfare provision, but German users are still largely addressed as claimants and citizens. Moreover, they are acting as active co-producers, entitled claimants, subversive consumers and needy patients.

A Bicycle Built for Three. Private School Governance and Politics in the United States

While it is common in most developed nations to have private schools alongside a dominant public school system, this chapter will discuss how in the United States (US) three distinct private school markets have emerged since the 1990s. In most OECD countries we would observe one type of public and private school delivering complementary and/or supplementary educational services. Private schools would in most cases fall under the same regulatory regime.

Bürger, Konsumenten und Koproduzenten

Privatschulen boomen, sowohl national als auch international. Den vorhandenen Statistiken konnen wir entnehmen, dass immer mehr Privatschulen gegrundet werden. Allerdings ist wenig uber das Schuler- und Elternverhalten an Privatschulen bekannt. Dieser Artikel geht der Frage nach, wie sich SchulerInnen und Eltern fur eine Privatschule entscheiden, welche Kriterien sie bei ihrer Auswahl berucksichtigen und welche Nutzerrollen sie einnehmen.

Book Review: Making Markets in the Welfare State: The Politics of Varying Market Reforms by Jane Gingrich, Cambridge University Press

Social policy scholars are very good at comparing welfare states, but little is known about the markets within these welfare states. Jane Gingrich addresses this vast research gap in her new book by comparing the welfare market creation in three countries (England, Sweden, the Netherlands) and three social services (primary healthcare, schools, long-term care) since the 1980s. Based on more than 165 expert interviews, Gingrich presents the nine comparative case studies with in-depth knowledge and scholarly finesse. Her book rests on two main arguments that are likely to revive the social policy debate on welfare markets and the causes for the rise of markets in social policy. First, she stresses that markets vary across policy areas and countries. Previous case studies mainly contrasted public social services with social services provided in a competitive environment, ignoring national differences between welfare systems. Gingrich contributes to shed light on the differences between market regulation and the distinct outcomes these markets produce. She constructs six ideal types of markets that differ on two dimensions (production/ allocation). The case studies reveal that the market institutions vary between countries and policy areas, but also over time. Policy changes altered who has control over the production (state/users/producers) and how resources are allocated and accessed (collective/individual), resulting in different welfare outcomes within these markets. Second, these market variations are the basis for her main argument that politics matters. Gingrich argues that ‘political parties introduce different markets in order to achieve distinct goals’. The Left and Right are struggling not only about whether markets are superior to public services, but also about the design of markets. The Left traditionally favours public services over private provision, but would advocate universal and uniform markets as a secondbest option. In contrast, the core partisan preference of the Right rests on a weak welfare state and strong markets. They support free consumer-driven markets that are fragmented and include a strong price competition. However, Gingrich states that these core preferences are subject to change and are adapted to the existing welfare regime. For instance, the Swedish Right faced difficulties in finding electoral support for completely liberated markets and, thus, adopted a moderate agenda for more universal markets that are still under tight state control. The existing welfare institutions define the playing field in which the parties negotiate market reforms, but the main driving factors are the parties and their preferences for particular types of markets. The strong evidence presented in the case studies supports these two main arguments. Furthermore, Gingrich stresses in her comparative discussion that she finds anecdotal evidence for her argument in other policy areas and developed welfare regimes. Despite this convincing argument, I want to highlight three points that would have required more elaboration, or that even question aspects of her main line of argument. Theoretically, Gingrich addresses ‘Markets in the welfare state’, but seems to omit some of the 440381 ESP0010.1177/0958928712440381Book ReviewsJournal of European Social Policy 2012

Mainstreamkonvergenz und Geschlechterdifferenz

Zusammenfassung Die aktuellen Veränderungen der Rentensysteme wurden als konvergente Entwicklungen beschrieben, wobei nur der Wandel in den Bereichen Indexierung Regelaltersgrenze oder die Schaffung einer kapitalgedeckten Altersvorsorge untersucht wurde. Der Wandel erscheint aber in einem anderen Licht, wenn systematisch Geschlechterunterschiede in die Analyse einbezogen werden. In dem Aufsaß werden die Rentenreformen in Deutschland (2001) und Schweden (1998) mit einem Fokus auf deren Geschlechterregime verglichen, dabei werden vier Vergleichsdimensionen (Stratifizierung, Autonomer Haushalt, Anerkennung und Externalisierung von Erziehungsarbeit und Auszahlung und Erwerb der Leistungsberechtigung) verwendet. Der Vergleich zeigt, dass die Konvergenz- Hypothese nur auf die Regelungen zutrifft, die keinen Einfluss auf die Geschlechterregime haben. Die Geschlechterregime Deutschlands und Schwedens bleiben im Gegenteil überaus stabil, sodass von einer konvergenten Stabilität gesprochen werden kann. Starke Pfadabhängigkeiten prägen damit Veränderungen im Bereich der geschlechterrelevanten Rentenregelungen.