Rethinking tenure? Understanding and
classifying housing circumstances
Housing Studies Association conference
April 2016
Ben Pattison
Overview
• Builds on PhD research into growth of private
renting
• Seeking to explore the wider implications of
findings
• Initial thoughts on conceptual and analytical
understanding of changes in housing
circumstances
• Two key questions:
– To what extent is there evidence of increasing
housing precarity across/within tenure boundaries?
– How can we assess and understand these changes
in housing circumstances?
Generation Rent and wider tenure
changes
• Growth of private renting popularised as
'Generation Rent'
• Not just about households who are 'priced
out'
• Also Housing Benefit claimants, students,
recent migrants
• Interactions with stock, landlords and labour
markets
• Wider tenure changes include: outright
occupation, changes within social housing,
'hybrid' tenures
The problem of tenure
• Tenure categories too often used uncritically in
policy (and sometimes academia)
• Issues with tenure include:
– heterogeneity within tenure
– differentiation between tenures (e.g. shared
ownership)
– spatial variation
– change over time
• Narrow, legal definitions of tenure exclude
– 'ideologies of homeownership' (Ronald, 2008),
– stigmatisation of social housing (Flint, 2003;
McKee, 2011)
– territorial stigmatization (Wacquant et al, 2014)
Why does classification matter?
• Tenure categories can be useful proxies for
aspects of housing circumstances such as social
status, security and asset building
• But, used uncritically, they can mask changes in
housing circumstances
• Evidence of increased precarity in housing
circumstance such as:
– Less secure social housing tenancies
– Poor quality stock within private renting
– Growth in homelessness and marginal housing
situations
• Contrast with growth of outright ownership
Two alternatives...
• Housing Pathways
– Described by Clapham (2005)
– Highlight changes in individual circumstances
– Less strong on wider ideological and socioeconomic context? (but see Hochtenbach &
Boterman, 2014)
• Housing and class
– Rex and Moore (1967)
– Savage (2015): Seven classes including an
elite, a precariat and fragmented middle class
– Bourdieu's ideas of economic, cultural and
social capital
– Over simplification of housing circumstances?
Housing circumstances: Three key axes?
• Economic
– Cost of accommodation
– Asset building (housing wealth, Right to Buy,
shared ownership)
• Security
– Legal security
– Stock conditions and safety
• Social status
– Social status and/or stigmatisation of housing
tenure
– Social status and/or stigmatisation of stock and
location
Revisiting housing and class
• Assessing Savage's categorisation against
housing circumstances
• Is there an elite who benefit from high
levels of security, social status and
economic gain from their housing?
• Is there a precariat with little or no housing
security, social status or economic gain?
• What is happening to the housing
circumstances of the 'fragmented middle'?
• Is there an increase in precarity which cuts
across tenure categories?
Thought experiment: classifying circumstances
Young family
with 2 children
living in South
East. They
have just
purchased a
flat which
needs
substantial
work in a less
desirable area.
They have a
large mortgage
but are starting
to gain
significant
wealth as
prices rise
Conclusions
• There is clear evidence of profound changes in
housing circumstances across the UK
• Uncritical use of housing tenure as a proxy for
housing circumstances can mask understanding
of these changes
• There is a need to update our analytical and
conceptual understanding of housing
circumstances
• In particular, more analysis is required to
understand the extent to which there is growing
precarity in housing circumstances
References
Clapham, D. (2005) The Meaning of Housing: A pathways approach. Bristol,
The Policy Press.
Flint, J. (2003) Housing and ethopolitics: constructing identities of active
consumption and responsible community. Economy and Society. 32 (4),
611–629.
Hochstenbach, C. & Boterman, W. (2014) Navigating the field of housing:
housing pathways of young people in Amsterdam. Journal of Housing and
the Built Environment. ifirst.
McKee, K. (2011) Challenging the Norm? The ‘Ethopolitics’ of Low-cost
Homeownership in Scotland. Urban Studies. 48 (16), 3399–3413.
Rex, J. & Moore, R. (1967) Race, Community and Conflict: A study of
Sparkbrook. London, Oxford University Press.
Ronald, R. (2008) The Ideology of Home Ownership: Homeownership
societies and the role of housing. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Savage, M. (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. London, Pelican.
Wacquant, L., Slater, T. & Pereira, V. (2014) Territorial Stigmatization in
Action. Environment and Planning A. 46, 1270–1280.
Thank you
Feel free to contact me
[email protected]
@bmpattison
@cresr_shu