Housing and the New Welfare State: Wobbly Pillar or Cornerstone?

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the question of how to depict the housing-welfare state relationship, with special reference to the present period. It begins with a discussion of how housing can be seen as both the wobbly pillar under the welfare state and a cornerstone. The paper then examines two different perspectives, variously giving explanatory weight to economic and cultural factors. The first, derived from the work of Michael Harloe, provides an explanation of the tendency of social housing to move towards a residual role, but has nothing to say about the growing significance of housing markets and housing wealth in relation to the contemporary welfare state. The second, originated by Jim Kemeny, is based on international correlations of homeownership rates and levels of welfare state expenditure. It is argued that this approach has limited, and diminishing, relevance in the context of the early 21st century. The paper suggests that in the present period housing, especially the housing wealth of owner occupiers, provides governments with the opportunity to pursue welfare restructuring. This idea is explored by reference to evidence from Great Britain, a country with a high level of homeownership and an active programme of public service reform.