Home ownership, housing policy and path dependence in Finland, Norway and Sweden
Jardar Sørvoll; Hannu Ruonavaara; Bo Bengtsson
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2021042717233
Tiivistelmä
Although home ownership is the dominant
housing tenure in practically all countries, discussions on housing policy and
politics tend to focus on the rental tenure, both in universal and selective
housing regimes. To some extent, home ownership seems to be defined as being
outside housing policy and, at the most, subject to intended or unintended
effects of overarching economic, financial and taxation policies. Starting from
Jim Kemeny’s idea of a socially constructed ‘myth of homeownership’, this paper
discusses the characteristics and potentials of a housing policy that includes
home ownership, and what specific expressions the well-known institutional and
discursive path dependence of housing provision would take within such a
policy. The argument is illustrated with observations from three Nordic housing
regimes (Sweden, Norway and Finland), where home-ownership has been seen as an
important ingredient in general housing policies, although from different
cultural and ideological standpoints. Sweden where owner occupation has not been
that common but so-operative housing has been important has until recently
pursued universal, tenure neutral policies. However, this has been changing in recent
system change. In Norway the “myth of home ownership” has been strong, and social
democratic housing policies have provided universal support for home ownership
and co-operative tenure. Norwegian
housing regime has since the 1980s developed towards a dualist system with
unregulated owner occupied and private rental markets and a small targeted municipal
sector. In Finland where home ownership
has dominated the past selective housing policies operated through both home
ownership and renting. In recent times the focus has shifted towards social
rental housing. We also discuss to what
extent the recent housing and financial crisis can be seen as a ’critical
juncture’ in the role of homeownership in the three countries.
Kokoelmat
- Rinnakkaistallenteet [19206]