Title: ‘Housing Poverty’ and Income Poverty in England and The Netherlands
Abstract: Abstract This paper examines whether the distributional consequences of contrasting welfare systems are enhanced, replicated or countered by housing systems in England and the Netherlands. It adopts the monetised concepts of 'net housing income' and 'net housing resources', which are commensurable with disposable income and income-based measures of poverty. It was found that both housing systems exert a poverty-reducing impact compared to disposable income alone. The absolute reduction is greatest in England, suggesting that its housing system counters the high levels of income poverty produced by the welfare system, although the comparative levels of poverty between the two countries remain unchanged, which may signify that the distribution of disposable income is replicated in housing. However, the synthetic concept of 'housing poverty' reveals that the poverty-reducing impact of housing income/ resources arises because by themselves they are distributed far less equally than is disposable income, so creating a much higher rate of 'housing poverty'. Crucially, 'housing poverty' occurs predominantly among those who are not income poor. This allows welfare and housing systems to combine to reduce poverty in an act of progressive dissonance, suggesting a hitherto unexpectedly high degree of independence between the two. Keywords: Welfare statecomparative housinghousing economics Acknowledgements In addition to the referees, the authors would like to thank Bo Bengtsson and Richard Ronald for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. The authors also wish to thank the Department of Communities and Local Government for the grant that supported the initial stages of this work. Responsibility for the paper remains that of the authors. Much of van Steen's contribution to this article was undertaken when he was employed by OTB Delft University of Technology. Notes 1 CitationBengtsson's observation that 'the longevity and physical sluggishness of the housing stock' (2009, p. 20) implies that the housing system might react more slowly than other areas of the welfare state to changes in power relations or collective ideology. This would allow for asymmetries between housing system and welfare system within the same welfare regime. 2 Hills (Citation1998) made a similar distinction between 'housing income' and 'real comprehensive income'. 3 It is also conceivable that housing consumption may be more highly valued in utility terms than its market value, due to the psychological value of 'home' over a mere house (Barr, Citation1987). Note also that the general point is consistent with the compositional fallacy. For example. delivering housing subsidy through housing allowances rather than through bricks-and-mortar subsidies might increase the utility at the individual level, but the benefits may be diminished if the overall effect of housing allowances is to increase rents. 4 As an externally assessed value, housing income accords with Atkinson's (Citation1989) 'standard of living' concept rather than his 'minimum rights' approach, based on utility. 5 This does not necessarily disprove the existence of common welfare regimes underlying housing and welfare systems. See 1 above.
Publication Year: 2011
Publication Date: 2011-10-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 40
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