Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T19:27:08.944Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Nation of Inheritors? Housing Inheritance, Wealth and Inequality in Britain*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Chris Hamnett
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines the growth of housing inheritance in Britain since the late 1960s using Inland Revenue statistics. It also uses survey evidence to examine the uneven distribution of inheritance by housing tenure, class and region, and assesses its implications for consumption cleavage theory. It argues that at present the social distribution of housing inheritance is far from equal, benefiting home owners and the professional and managerial classes, but that, over the next 40 years, it will become much more widespread as the post-war generation of home owners bequeathes property. It is likely, however, that the children of tenants will be generally excluded from housing inheritance which is largely confined to the children of home owners.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 1991 , pp. 509 - 536
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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

REFERENCES

Atkinson, A.B. (1971), ‘The distribution of wealth and the individual life-cycle’, Oxford Economic Papers, 23: 2, 239–254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, A.B. (1972), Unequal Shares: The Distribution of Wealth in Britain, Penguin, Harmondsworth.Google Scholar
Atkinson, A.B. (1978), Distribution of Personal Wealth in Britain, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Atkinson, A.B. (1983). The Economics of Inequality, Clarendon, Oxford.Google Scholar
Badcock, B. (1989), ‘Homeownership and the accumulation of real wealth’, Society and Space, 7, 69–91.Google Scholar
Bentham, G. (1986), ‘Socio-tenurial polarization in the United Kingdom, 1953–83: the income evidence’, Urban Studies, 21, 57–62.Google Scholar
Burrows, R. and Butler, T. (1989), ‘Middle mass and the pit: a critical review of Peter Saunders's Sociology of Consumption’, The Sociological Review, 37: 2, 338–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Department of the Environment (1977), Housing Policy Review, HMSO.Google Scholar
Duncan, S. (1989), ‘Do house prices rise that much? A dissenting view’, Housing Studies, 5: 3, 195–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunleavy, P. (1979), ‘The urban basis of political alignment: social class, domestic property ownership, and state intervention in consumption processes’, British Journal of Political Science, 9, 409–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forrest, R. and Murie, A. (1987), ‘Marginalisation and subsidised individualism’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 10, 46–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forrest, R. and Murie, A. (1989), ‘Differential accumulation: wealth, inheritance and housing policy reconsidered’. Policy and Politics, 17: 1, 25–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forrest, R., Murie, A. and Williams, P. (1990), Home Ownership, Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Good, F.J. (1990), ‘Estimates of the distribution of personal wealth: 1, Marketable wealth of individuals 1976 to 1988’, Economic Trends, 444, 10 137–157.Google Scholar
Hamnett, C. (1984), ‘Housing the two nations: socio–tenurial polarisation in England and Wales, 1961–81’, Urban Studies, 21: 3, 389–405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamnett, C. (1986), ‘The changing socio-economic structure of London and the South East, 1966–1981’, Regional Studies, 20: 5, 291–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamnett, C. (1988), ‘Regional variations in house prices and house price inflation in Britain, 1969–88’, Royal Bank of Scotland Review, 159, 29–40.Google Scholar
Hamnett, C. (1989a), ‘The owner occupied housing market in Britain: a north-south divide?’, in Lewis, J. and Townsend, A. (eds), The North-South Divide, Paul Chapman Publishing, London.Google Scholar
Hamnett, C. (1989b), ‘Consumption and class in contemporary Britain’, in Hamnett, C., McDowell, L. and Sarre, P. (eds), The Changing Social Structure, Sage, London.Google Scholar
Hamnett, C. (1991), ‘Home ownership, housing wealth and wealth distribution in Britain’, paper given to the Housing Policy as a Strategy for Change Conference, Oslo, June 24–27 1991.Google Scholar
Hamnett, C. and Harmer, M. (1990), ‘Inheritance in London: the evidence provided by wills’ (unpublished).Google Scholar
Hamnett, C., Harmer, M. and Williams, P. (1989), Housing Inheritance: a National Survey of its Scale and Impact, Housing Research Foundation.Google Scholar
Hamnett, C., Harmer, M. and Williams, P. (1991), Safe as Houses: Housing Inheritance in Britain, Paul Chapman Publishing, London.Google Scholar
Harbury, C.D. (1962), ‘Inheritance and the distribution of personal wealth in Britain’, Economic Journal, 72, 854–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harbury, C.D. and Hitchens, D. (1979), Inheritance and Wealth Inequality in Britain, George Allen and Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Harbury, C.D. and McMahon, P.C. (1973), ‘Inheritance and characteristics of top wealth leavers in Britain’, Economic Journal, 83, 811–833.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harloe, M. (1984), ‘Sector and class: a critical comment’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 8: 2, 228–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harmer, M. and Hamnett, C. (1990), ‘Regional variations in housing inheritance in Britain’, Area, 22: 1, 1–15.Google Scholar
Hogg, S. (1987), ‘A nation of inheritors’, The Independent, 30 11.Google Scholar
Holmans, A. (1990), House Prices: Changes Through Time at National and Sub–National Level, Government Economic Service Working Paper No. 110, DoE.Google Scholar
Horseman, E. (1978), ‘Inheritance in England and Wales: the evidence provided by wills’, Oxford Economic Papers, NS, 30, 409–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inland Revenue Statistics, Annual, various dates, HMSO.Google Scholar
Jenkins, S.P. and Maynard, A. (1983), ‘Intergenerational continuities in housing’, Urban Studies, 20, 431–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leather, P. (1990), ‘The potential and implications of home equity release in old age’, Housing Studies, 5: 1, 3–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merrett, S. (1980), Owner Occupation in Britain, Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Grenfell, Morgan (1987), ‘Housing inheritance and wealth’, Morgan Grenfell Economic Review, 45, 1–22.Google Scholar
Munro, M. (1988), ‘Housing wealth and inheritance’, Journal of Social Policy, 17: 4, 417–36.Google Scholar
Murie, A. (1986), ‘Social differentiation in urban areas: housing or occupational class at work?’ Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 77, 345–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murie, A. and Forrest, R. (1980), ‘Wealth, inheritance and housing policy’, Policy and Politics, 8: 1, 1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pahl, R. (1975), Whose City?, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth (1977), Third Report on the Standing Reference, (Report No. 5), Cmnd 6999, HMSO, London.Google Scholar
Rubenstein, W.D. (1986), Wealth and Inequality in Britain, Faber and Faber, London.Google Scholar
Saunders, P. (1984), ‘Beyond housing classes: the sociological significance of private property rights in the means of consumption’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 8: 2, 202–27.Google Scholar
Saunders, P. (1986), ‘Comment on Dunleavy and Preteceille’, Society and Space, 4, 155–63.Google Scholar
Saunders, P. (1990), A Nation of Home Owners, Unwin Hyman, London.Google Scholar
Spencer, P. (1987), UK House Prices: Not An Inflation Signal, Economics series, Credit Suisse First Boston, London.Google Scholar
Swenarton, M. and Taylor, S. (1984), ‘The scale and growth of owner-occupation in Britain between the Wars’, Economic History Review, 38, 373–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorns, D. (1981a), ‘The implications of differential rates of capital gain from owner occupation for the formation and development of housing classes’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 5, 205–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thorns, D. (1981b), ‘Owner – occupation: its significance for wealth transfer and class formation’, Sociological Review, 29: 4, 705–27.Google Scholar
Thorns, D. (1989), ‘The impact of home ownership and capital gains on class and consumption sectors’, Society and Space, 7, 293–312.Google Scholar
Warde, A. (1990), ‘Production, consumption and social change: on Saunders's sociology of consumption’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 14: 2, 228–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar