Asset-based Welfare

The issue of “housing” has generally not been granted an important role in post-war political economy. Housing-as-policy has been the preserve of social policy analysis and of a growing field of housing studies; housing-as-market has been confined to mainstream economics. This paper insists that political-economic analysis can no longer remain relatively indifferent to the housing question since housing is implicated in the contemporary capitalist political economy in numerous critical, connected, and very often contradictory ways. The paper conceptualizes this implication by identifying the multiple roles of housing when “capital” – the essential “stuff” of political economy – is considered from the perspective of each of its three primary, mutually-constitutive guises: as process of circulation, as social relation, and as ideology. Mobilizing these three optics to provide a critical overall picture of housing-in-political-economy (more than a political
economy of housing), we draw on and weave together the many vital contributions of housing research to our evolving understanding of capitalism.

Keywords: housing, political economy, capital, circulation, ideology, social relations

Housing is a key object of financialization. There is a small but growing literature on the financialization of housing that has demonstrated how housing is a central aspect of financialization. Despite the varied analyses of the financialization of housing and the importance of housing to financialization, the relations between housing and financialization remain under-researched and under-theorized. The financialization of housing is not so much a specific from of financialization, as it transcends several of the different forms of financialization. Housing systems, in particular, differ widely across the globe, which implies that housing financialization will be inherently variegated, path-dependent and uneven. In this introduction to the Symposium, I will discuss how the articles in this Symposium contribute to the literature on the financialization of housing. Housing has entered a post-Fordist, neoliberal and financialized regime. Both mortgaged homeownership and subsidized rental housing increasingly are there to keep financial markets going, rather than being facilitated by those markets. There is little evidence that the global financial crisis has resulted in a de-financialization of housing. There are common trajectories within uneven and variegated financialization rather than radically different and completely unrelated forms of housing financialization.
Key words: housing, financialization, mortgage markets, rental housing, home ownership, state and public sector

Homeownership has been declining in favour of private renting in most developed English speaking countries since the early-2000s. Public debates in countries like Britain, Australia and the US have subsequently focused on the ostensible coming of age of ‘generation rent’, constituted of younger individuals excluded from home buying and traditional routes to housing asset accumulation. While the focus of this paper is the significance of access to housing assets as a means to offset potential economic and welfare precarity, our concern is landlords rather than tenants. Drawing on British survey data, we show that the rental boom has been accompanied by increasing multiple property ownership among classes of largely middle-aged and relatively affluent households. Over one-million small-time landlords have emerged in the last decade alone, who, we argue, are part product of historic developments in housing markets and welfare states. Generations of British have not only been orientated towards their homes as commodity assets, they have also begun to mobilise around multi-property accumulation in a context of shifting welfare and pension expectations.

This article re-thinks the Polanyian diagnosis of contemporary populist movements from a Polanyian perspective. Polanyi theorised the political polarisation of the inter-war years was as the result of a four stage process: 1) commodification of land, labour and money; 2) societal counter-movements against the effects of commodification; 3) economic strains caused by the interaction of these two forces; 4) the emergence of political movements promising to dissolve the institutional separation between the political and the economic. Existing Polanyian perspectives equate contemporary populist movements with stage two in this process: a pendular ‘double movement’ against neoliberal commodification. However, this account simplifies the Polanyian schema. By unpacking Polanyi’s arguments and comparing them with history of the neoliberal period, I suggest contemporary populism is better understood as reflecting the fourth stage. Asset-based welfare and other marketised forms of social protection are not internal to commodification dynamics but rather immanent counter-movements specific to the neoliberal period. This has implications for how we diagnose contemporary populist movements and map potential strategic responses. A return to stable growth and the restoration of Keynesian welfare institutions from the post-war social-democratic toolkit will be unlikely to address populist grievance in the absence of more substantive democratic oversight of the disposal of land, labour and money.

Population aging has led to the establishment of Healthcare REITs (HC-REITs) to boost the supply of nursing homes, but these initiatives have met with contrasting success in different countries. This paper bridges two strands of research on financialization, social welfare and the built environment, to explain the uneven geography of HC-REIT development in France, the U.K. and Japan. It argues that nation-specific processes of nursing home securitization are shaped by the interrelationships between three crucial factors: (i) the regime of retirement income, (ii) public policies dedicated to long-term institutional care, and (iii) the power relations between the REITs and care providers themselves. Drawing on discussions with experts in these sectors, the paper demonstrates that liberal welfare states such as the U.K. have an especially attractive profile for HC-REIT investors due to the advanced state of financialized pension reforms, significant state disengagement in the provision of long-term care, and REITfriendly regulations that facilitate investment operations and leases. On the one hand, these tendencies are driving financial investors to satisfy a growing demand for retirement savings in niche markets such as HC-REITs. On the other hand, value extraction is being increasingly sought through the capture of care-dependent residents' home equity. By linking social benefit provisioning to later-life housing accommodation, this article casts important light on current debates on the political economy of real estate financialization, while also emphasizing the need for continued state support for long-term institutional care.

From the mid-1990s, Ireland experienced a property bubble, fuelled by deregulation in the banking sector and government commitment to expanding home ownership. However, since 2007, the situation has dramatically reversed. The banking system and property market have collapsed and pushed the Irish state into insolvency. National house prices have fallen by 50 per cent from the peak in 2007, whereas incomes have contracted and the unemployment rate has increased. This has produced a serious situation regarding negative equity and mortgage arrears, a problem highlighted by the former U.S. President Bill Clinton on a visit to Ireland in 2011. This paper examines government responses to the mortgage crisis, particularly their emphasis on mortgage forbearance and reform of Ireland's bankruptcy legislation. An overview of the drivers of the bubble and the extent of negative equity and arrears is provided firstly. In conclusion, the paper reflects upon the implications of the crisis for the homeownership model that Ireland has followed for the last two decades.

"ABSTRACT
The housing tenure structure has long been associated with different forms of welfare state capitalism in Western Europe. However, with the rise of owner occupancy, this association lost its straightforwardness. An alternative view is to view housing policies that promote owner occupancy for households to acquire assets, as an attempt by the state to reform social welfare systems. The politics of welfare reform are related to the discourses of home ownership ideology. The ownership of (housing) assets agenda serves as a means to change the relationship between state, market and individual households. This view is mostly based on the British experience and this paper seeks to broaden it by examining the Netherlands and Spain. The paper shows differences, but also that housing policies play an important role in driving towards or maintaining market-dominated solutions. Housing is used to either reorient towards or maintain a welfare system where asset ownership and market dependency is deemed more appropriate than secure income and public expenditure.
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This article calls for a critical revaluation of the case for asset-based welfare as a progressive strategy for greater social inclusion. Whilst there is a strong case for helping low-income households to build a financial cushion, the idea that there is a stronger ‘asset-effect’ – with positive benefits beyond financial stability and access to goods and services – is unsupported by current evidence. Recent interpretations of that evidence have tended to claim a unique asset-effect that could in fact be achieved by other means. The idea of an asset-effect is also normatively opaque in the current debate, with little clarity on the deeper issue of the individual behaviours that the ‘effect’ is intended to create. This leaves an ambiguity in the relationship between asset-based welfare and the rights and duties of citizenship; a lacuna that is easily exploited by ideologies of self-sufficiency at the expense of more egalitarian accounts of social inclusion.

Owner occupancy has been on the rise in recent decades. While some countries have had high rates of owner occupancy for some time, many traditionally rental-oriented countries in Western Europe are showing increasing rates of owner occupancy. This trend is related to top-down government policies that encourage this form of tenure.The promotion of owner occupancy is best understood in relation to the distinct ideology, or ideologies, of home ownership.
The first aim of this paper is to examine Dutch housing policy for the presence of an ownership/asset ideology, and to appraise this ideology within the context of the Dutch housing system.
The second aim of this chapter is to illuminate the role of urban regeneration in the promotion of owner occupancy. This paper will argue that urban regeneration is both a strategy for reforming the housing supply and a strategy of risk mitigation.

This is based on the forthcoming book chapter: Soaita AM (in press) The changing nature of outright homeownership in Romania: housing wealth and housing inequality. In C Dewilde & R. Ronald (Eds.) Housing Wealth and Welfare. Edward Elgar Publishers (peer reviewed).

Economic crisis, fiscal austerity and the new demography of ageing societies have given rise to the idea of ‘asset-based welfare’ as a key complement of the UK’s shrinking welfare state. We scrutinise people’s views and strategies towards what might be paraphrased as ‘homeownership-based welfare’; we look at the opportunities/limitations for positioning housing wealth as a base for family welfare within and across cohorts and socioeconomic groups. By analysing 112 in-depth interviews with homeowners and tenants, we conclude that socioeconomic inequality challenges the potential for housing to form an ‘asset-based welfare’. The least affluent remain excluded and unable to make alternative provisions whereas the affluent have various assets to engage in the provision for their family welfare without having to resort to the wealth embedded in their home. In-between, numerous participants pursue strategies of homeownership/property-based welfare by traditional routes or increasingly by letting out buy-to-let or inherited property.

Cet article s’intéresse aux débats ayant accompagné, au Royaume-Uni, la mise en place d’une politique publique élaborée à l’aune d’une « nouvelle » théorie de l’État social : l’Asset-based Welfare. Le dispositif au c œur de cette politique, le Child Trust Fund, est en effet présenté comme un moyen de faire reculer les inégalités de richesse. L’étude des processus de diffusion et d’appropriation des idées mobilisées dans ces discussions souligne la présence d’un « exemple américain », véritable ressource pour les différents entrepreneurs de l’Asset-based Welfare. Ces débats contribuent par ailleurs à reformuler les rapports entre la « gauche » et la propriété privée et mettent en lumière l’existence d’une « élite du welfare » néotravailliste.
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This article addresses the ongoing debate in the UK about the implementation of a public policy built on the theory of asset-based welfare. The core of this policy, the Child Trust Fund, is indeed championed by its supporters as the best way to tackle inequalities of wealth. The debate over this new approach has brought to the fore an “American model ” espoused by various asset-based welfare entrepreneurs. The foregoing article traces the dissemination and appropriation of that model, as well as the changing patterns of the center-left’s relationship to private ownership and the emergence of a “New Labourite welfare elite ”.

The UK Child Trust Fund (CTF), which came into effect in January 2005, appears to be an exemplary instance of ‘asset-based welfare ’ , of the redistribution of wealth rather than simply income. However, this article shows that over the course of its development, and in its fi nal implementation, CTF policy became ever more focused on generating a ‘ savings culture ’ and enhancing fi nancial literacy. In explaining this outcome, it is argued that it may be characteristic of New Labour for which, it is further argued, welfare policy should seek to push individual aspirations and outlooks in certain directions. The article takes an interpretive approach to the study of policy and politics, arguing that we should look carefully at the processes of argument and selection by which ‘objects’ of policy are specified. This can help us characterize the approach of varying administrations, their ‘ governmentality ’ .