Social housing in Western Europe in the nineties

Abstract

Housing systems in Western Europe display a fair degree of similarity in their development. After the Second World War, governments became deeply involved in housing. Faced with housing shortages caused by the war, government policies were primarily directed toward large-scale housing construction programs. This was the heyday of the social rented sector in Europe. In the mid-1970s, however, a shift occurred in the position of this sector within housing policy. At that time, housing shortages were declining. Meanwhile, insights in how to structure the welfare state were changing. Thus, at a growing pace, the social rented sector has been losing its dominant role to home ownership. Diverse causes for this development have been pointed out. Various authors have identified (a combination of) ideological and economic motives (see the contributions to this special issue). Furthermore, the course these changes have taken in different countries is fairly similar. There was a general decline in public investment; there was a shift away from government regulation toward the market mechanism; the remaining government influence was decentralized; and the (declining) financial support shifted from generic to specific subsidies, targeted to the groups with the weakest socio-economic position. Throughout Western Europe, this development was accompanied by (attempts at) privatization of the social rented Lundqvist (1992, p. 3) considers privatization as a conscious public policy, regardless of the level of welfare provision. He defines it as actions taken by actors legitimately representing the public sector to transfer the hitherto public responsibility for a certain activity away from the public and into the private sector. In practice, West European countries show differences in the division of competencies between the public and private sectors. At the same time, they show differences in the degree to which and the means whereby government policy is oriented toward a shift in competence from the public to the private Nevertheless, we can distinguish several comparable efforts at privatization.