Housing inequality revisited

The Week in Housing 12/04/24

Today’s piece is a follow on from one entitled What is housing inequality?, published back in November. It’s the first of a series of posts (possibly two or three) that will look at recent research on housing inequality internationally, especially as it relates to the PRS. On another note, please consider sharing The Week in Housing via social media or email. It’s the only way I have of growing the readership, and I’m hoping to hit 1,000 subscribers by the end of the year.

Issues around housing affordability, homelessness and evictions are increasingly prevalent across many countries, and discussions of ‘housing crisis’ \are increasingly commonplace. These issues primarily effect specific cohorts, such as low-income households, one-parent families and migrants. Moreover, as house prices go up, and housing becomes more unaffordable, the value of the assets held by homeowners also increases. Thus, there are good reasons why the idea of housing inequality has gained traction in recent years. But as argued by James et al.

‘The breadth and diversity of the use and characterization of housing inequality in research and literature, could suggest that it is a ‘conceptually blunt’ term, either failing to distinguish between the different forms of unequal housing, or not adequately incorporating how housing works. Concepts that seem to cover everything can be so broad they ‘explain rather little’; and many uses of housing inequality… might be susceptible to just that’.

James et al. conclude that , in its current state, the concept of housing inequality is ‘unable to capture the interacting powers, processes and practices that define and constitute what we consider ‘housing’ generally, and which (re)produce inequalities’.

This suggests that housing inequality, as a concept, is not quite fit for purpose. While it is currently a useful heuristic to gesture towards a set of issues, it lacks sufficient conceptual specificity. Here, as a kind of thought experiment, I develop an approach which sets out three interacting dimensions of housing inequality that can help clarify it as a concept: (a) the unequal distribution of housing; (b) non-housing socio-economic inequalities that impact on the distribution of housing; and (c) how the unequal distribution of housing impacts non-housing socio-economic inequality.

The first of these three dimensions relates to the distribution of housing itself. Any discussion of inequality of course refers to the fact that something of value is unevenly distributed. Discussions of housing inequality, however, typically focus on the economic aspects of housing. For example, affordability, which tells about how hard different households have to work to access housing, or wealth inequality, which tells about how the wealth component of housing is unequally distributed. This economistic perspective has two problems. First, it doesn’t tell us much about the different experiences of housing and home that are characteristics of different socio-economic cohorts. Second, it reproduces the tendency to reduce housing to a simplistic shelter-based commodity.

To overcome this, we need to have a clearer conceptualization of what, exactly, is unequally distributed when we talk about housing inequality. In considering this, it seems obvious that we need to emphasize housing as home, and home as a unique type of place which meets a variety of human needs. Developing on this perspective, and the wider housing studies literature, I argue that in order to analyze inequality we can conceptualize home in relation to these three core features:

1.      Physical shelter, and the quality thereof (including access to physical shelter, the physical properties of the dwelling, e.g. insulation and energy efficiency, and size and suitability of the dwelling, e.g. issues of overcrowding). The qualities are reasonably easily measured, and captured, for example, in EUSILC’s housing deprivation measure. Such measures allow us to see how issues like cold and damp are unequally experienced by different cohorts.

2.      Security (including privacy, control and autonomy): this is a more complex, subjective and perhaps intangible aspect of home, but one which is pivotal to well being and residential satisfaction. Security, and its various sub-components are distributed unequally according to tenure, but also related to income and debt (for example heavily indebted homeowners are vulnerable to housing insecurity). In some senses it is harder to measure, but it is easy to see how something like the number and frequency of involuntary moves could be measured, and compared between different tenures and cohorts. To my knowledge, no country captures this data systematically. Mathew Desmond’s Eviction Lab at Princeton has done a lot to put the issue on the map.

3.      Place (the locational features of housing, such as accessibility of centres of employment or services, levels of crime etc.). I don’t no anything about this and I’m not even going to try and spoof! But it’s obviously important.

This way of thinking about housing inequality focuses on the core features of housing which are of value to households, the unequal distribution of which is a relevant concern (note how none of them are directly captured by the concept of affordability, which is by far the most prominent way of thinking about housing inequality). The first step in the conceptualization of housing inequality advanced here, thus, isolates what is a stake in the uneven distribution of housing. This helps to bring conceptual clarity.

However, because the unequal distribution of housing clearly impacts, and interacts with, forms of non-housing inequality, the second and third dimensions of the approach advanced here incorporate these non-housing dimensions into the conceptual approach.

The second dimension focuses on the non-housing socio-economic factors that lead to the unequal distribution of housing. These are forms of socio-economic inequality that shape what type of housing is accessed by different households, and include issues of income and class, as well as other socio-economic inequalities such as race and ethnicity, migration status, disability and so on. This dimension thus addresses how forms of inequality which have their roots in economic structures or representational/cultural politics interact with the housing system. For example, racist attitudes impact tenant experiences to the extent that they lead to discriminatory letting practices among landlords. This is an example of a form of inequality (racism) which does not originate in the housing system, but impacts on differences in households’ access to and experience of housing . Similarly, low-income households have systematically worse housing outcomes, i.e. experiences of shelter, security and place. In this case, the unequal distribution of income (a non-housing form of inequality) generates an unequal distribution of housing.

Importantly, because these socio-economic inequalities are experienced by social groups, this means housing inequality is not just about the uneven distribution of housing among households, but also between cohorts, such as classes.

The third dimension focuses on how the unequal distribution of housing impacts on non-housing socio-economic inequality. For example, homelessness can lead to poor educational outcomes (educational inequality), poor employment outcomes (labour market inequality) and poor mental health (health inequality). In this case, it is important to emphasize, it is the interaction between the first dimension and the second dimension that generate the non-housing forms of socio-economic inequality. For example the unequal distribution of income interacts with marketized housing systems to produce income-based housing inequality, which in turn impacts on or generates forms of non-housing inequality, for example access to employment.

Thus, the tripartite conceptualization advanced here aims to capture and isolate three different ‘moments’ of housing inequality, to highlight whether or not they are primarily about phenomena or processes internal to or external to the housing system itself, and to emphasize the causal relationship or dynamic at play.

Finally, it is important to highlight that the interaction between the three dimensions is dynamic and complex, with feedback loops going in various directions. For example, racial inequality impacts access to housing, which in turn impacts employment outcomes, which in turn impacts racial inequality etc. Thus, the three dimensions, while conceptually distinct, are closely related and the interaction between them will be central to any analysis of housing inequality. Nevertheless, having waded to the literature on housing inequality, I feel conceptualizing in terms of these three interacting dimensions helps to bring some much needed clarity.

Events & News

My fantastic colleague Stephan Koeppe is advertising a great PhD fellowship in the area of inter-generational transfers and housing. Also on the jobs front, the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, who have done some great work on housing, have a vacancy for a housing policy advocate. The Simon community’s upcoming event looks at a campaign to end homelessness in Denmark. And finally, the call for the annual Vienna International Summer School on New Social Housing has been released.

What I’m reading

I recently shared a new independent media platform in Ireland called Rundale, here’s a great new piece from it that looks at the case for specific regulations for corporate landlords, and is also a good summary of evidence and policy in the area. Within this report there’s a piece by Moreno on wealth inequality in Ireland, helpfully summarized in this Journal.ie article. Another brilliant piece on cost rental by Lois Kapila, who has been doing some fantastic work in this area. An interesting piece on the tenant in situ scheme in the Examiner. And finally, a new report has been published on the impact of North-South dynamics in housing markets.