Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T11:16:06.121Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From Housing Wealth to Mortgage Debt: The Emergence of Britain's Asset-Shaped Welfare State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2011

Stuart G. Lowe ,
Beverley A. Searle  and
Susan J. Smith
Stuart G. Lowe
Affiliation:
Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York E-mail: [email protected]
Beverley A. Searle
Affiliation:
Centre for Housing Research, University of St Andrews E-mail: [email protected]
Susan J. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Cambridge E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Housing has been unjustifiably neglected in comparative welfare state research. The banking crisis of 2007–08, however, revealed how important housing, especially home ownership and the institutional structures of the mortgage market, has become to welfare state change. Securitisation of mortgages created a new circuit of global capital, while national mortgage markets became the conduit through which home owners were connected to this wave of globally sourced capital. In the UK, equity stored in owner-occupied property became much more fungible because of the very open/liberal mortgage market. As a result home owners began to ‘bank’ on their homes using it not only for consumption but increasingly as a financial safety net, a cushion against adversity and a means for securing access to privately supplied services and supporting their family's welfare needs across the life-course. This welfare state change – a move towards asset-based welfare – was historically and today remains underpinned by the emergence of the UK as a home-owning society.

Keywords

Housingsocial policyasset-based welfareequity withdrawal
Type
Themed Section on Household Finances under Pressure: What is the Role of Social Policy?
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 105 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atkinson, A. B. and Harrison, A. J. (1978) Distribution of Personal Wealth in Britain, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Castles, F. G. (1998) Comparative Public Policy: Patterns of Post-War Transformation, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Castles, F. G. (2005) ‘The Kemeny thesis revisited’, Housing, Theory and Society, 22 (2).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clapham, D., Kemp, P. and Smith, S. J. (1990) Housing and Social Policy, Basingstoke: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clery, E., McKay, S., Phillips, M. and Robinson, C. (2007) Attitudes to Pensions, London: DWP/HMRC.Google Scholar
Dewilde, C. and Raeymaeckers, P. (2008) ‘The trade-off between home-ownership and pensions: individual and institutional determinants of old-age poverty’, Ageing and Society, 28, 805–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doling, J. (1997) Comparative Housing Policy: Government and Housing in Advanced Industrialized Countries, London: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doling, J. and Ronald, R. (2010) ‘Home-ownership and asset-based welfare’, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 25, 2, 165–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Girouard, N. (2010) ‘Housing and mortgage markets: an OECD perspective’, in Smith, S. J. and Searle, B. A. (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing: The Housing Wealth of Nations, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Treasury, HM (2001) Savings and Assets For All: The Modernisation of Britain's Tax and Benefits System, Number Eight, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Hamnett, C. (1999) Winners and Losers – Home Ownership in Modern Britain, London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Hamnett, C., Harmer, M. and Williams, P. (1991) As Safe as Houses: Housing Inheritance in Britain, London: Paul Chapman Publishing.Google Scholar
Heidenheimer, A. J., Heclo, H. and Adams, C. T. (1990) Comparative Public Policy: The Politics of Social Choice in America, Europe, and Japan, New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Hennigan, M. (2008) International House Price Comparison 1970–2006, Findfacts, http://finfacts.comm/irishfinancereview/Irish_2/article_1012464_printer.shtmGoogle Scholar
Holmans, A. E. and Frosztega, M. (1994) House Property and Inheritance in the UK, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Immergluck, D. (2009) Foreclosed, New York: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kemeny, J. (1981) The Myth of Home Ownership: Public versus Private Choices in Housing Tenure, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kemeny, J. (1995) From Public Housing to the Social Market, London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemeny, J. (2005) ‘“The really big trade-off” between home ownership and welfare: Castles’ evaluation of the 1980 thesis, and a reformulation 25 years on’, Housing and Social Theory, 22, 2, 59–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemeny, J. and Lowe, S. (1998) ‘Schools of comparative housing research: from convergence to divergence’, Housing Studies, 13, 2, 161–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, K. H. and Renaud, B. (2009) ‘The global house price boom and its unwinding: an analysis and a commentary’, Housing Studies, 24, 1, 7–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kluyev, V. and Mills, P. (2010) ‘Is housing wealth an ‘ATM’? International trends’, in Smith, S. J. and Searle, B. A. (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing: The Housing Wealth of Nations, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lowe, S. (1988) ‘New patterns of wealth: the growth of owner occupation’, in Walker, R. and Parker, G. (eds.), Money Matters: Income, Wealth and Financial Welfare, London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Lowe, S. (1990) ‘Capital accumulation in home ownership and family welfare’, in Manning, N. and Ungerson, C. (eds.), Social Policy Review 1989–90, Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Lowe, S. and Watson, S. (1990) ‘From first-time buyers to last time sellers: an appraisal of equity withdrawal from the housing market between 1982 and 1988’, York Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York.Google Scholar
Mian, A. and Sufi, A. (2009) ‘The household leverage-driven recession of 2007–2009’, University of Chicago Booth School of Business and NBER, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1463596.Google Scholar
Morgan Grenfell (1989) ‘Housing inheritance and wealth’, Economic Review, 45, London: Morgan Grenfell.Google Scholar
Office of National Statistics (ONS) (2009) ‘Wealth in Great Britain: main results from the wealth and assets survey, 2006/08’, www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/wealth-assets-2006-2008/Wealth_in_GB_2006_2008.pdf.Google Scholar
Overton, L. (2010) Housing and Finance in Later Life: A Study of Equity Release Customers, Report for AgeUK: London.Google Scholar
Pierson, P. (1994) Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierson, P. (2001) The New Politics of the Welfare State, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkinson, S., Searle, B. A., Smith, S. J., Stokes, A. and Wood, G. A. (2009) ‘Mortgage equity withdrawal in Australia and Britain: towards a wealth-fare state?’, European Journal of Housing Policy, 9, 4, 363–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Renaud, B. and Kim, K. H. (2007) ‘The global housing price boom and its aftermath’, Housing Finance International, 22, 2, 3–15.Google Scholar
Searle, B. A., Smith, S. J. and Cook, N. (2009) ‘From housing wealth to well-being?’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 31, 1, 112–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Skocpol, T. (1985) ‘Bringing the state back in: strategies of analysis in current research’, in Evans., P. B., Reuschemeyer, D. and Skocpol, T. (eds.), Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, J. (2004) ‘Exploring attitudes to housing wealth and retirement’, Housing Finance, 63, 34–44.Google Scholar
Smith, S. J. (2008) ‘Owner occupation: living with a hybrid of money and materials’, Environment and Planning A, 40, 520–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, S. J. (forthcoming) ‘‘Crisis and Innovation in the Housing Economy’, A Tale of Three Markets’, in Haliossis, M. (ed.) Financial Innovation and Economic Crisis, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Smith, S. J. (2011) ‘The crisis of residential capitalism: a tale of three markets and four visions’, Progress in Human Geography (in review).Google Scholar
Smith, S. J. and Searle, B. A. (2008) ‘Dematerialising Money? Observations on the flow of wealth from housing to other things’, Housing Studies, 23, 1, 21–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, S. J. and Searle, B. A. (eds.) (2010) The Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing: The Housing Wealth of Nations, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, S. J., Searle, B. A. and Cook, N. (2009) ‘Rethinking the risks of home ownership’, Journal of Social Policy, 38, 83–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, S. J., Searle, B. A and Powells, G. (2010) ‘Introduction’, in Smith, S. J. and Searle, B. A. (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing: The Housing Wealth of Nations, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swank, D. (2001) ‘Political institutions and welfare state restructuring: the impact of institutions on social policy change in developed democracies’, in Pierson, P. (ed.), The New Politics of the Welfare State, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Torgersen, U. (1987) ‘Housing: the wobbly pillar under the welfare state’, in Turner, B., Kemeny, J. and Lundqvist, L. (eds.), Between State and Market: Housing in the Post-Industrial Era, Stockholm: Almqvist and Wicksell International.Google Scholar
Watson, M. (2009) ‘Planning for a future of asset-based welfare? New Labour, financialized economic agency and the housing market’, Planning, Practice and Research, 24, 1, 41–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westaway, P. (1993) Mortgage Equity Withdrawal: Causes and Consequences, National Institute of Economic and Social Research Discussion Paper 59.Google Scholar
Wilcox, S. (2000) Housing Finance Review 2000/2001, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Wilcox, S. (2010) Financial Barriers to Home Ownership, York, Genworth Financial/Centre for Housing Policy: University of York.Google Scholar
Wilensky, H. L. (1975) The Welfare State and Equality: Structural and Ideological Roots Of Public Expenditure, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wood, G., Parkinson, S., Searle, B. A. and Smith, S. J. (forthcoming) ‘Motivations for equity borrowing: a welfare switching effect’, submitted to Journal of Housing Economics.Google Scholar