Gentrifying with family wealth: Parental gifts and neighbourhood sorting among young adult owner-occupants

Abstract

This paper assesses the role of parental gifts in neighbourhood sorting among young adult homebuyers. We make use of high-quality individual-level registry data for two large urban metropolitan areas in the Netherlands. While previous studies have shown that young adults receiving gifts purchase more expensive housing, little is known about the role of gifts in where young adults buy. Our study finds that parental gifts flow into the housing market in a spatially-uneven way. Movers supported by substantial parental gifts are more likely to enter owner-occupied housing in high-status and gentrifying urban neighbourhoods compared to movers without gifts. This study shows that this can only partially be explained by household and parental characteristics and by the uneven distribution of housing values. The remaining effect suggests that parental gifts also play a role in trade-offs regarding spatial residential decision-making. The conclusion discusses the ramifications of our findings for debates on (re)production of class and intra-generational inequalities through housing, and provides avenues for further research.