Explaining the declined affordability of housing for low-income private renters across Western Europe

• Published in: Urban studies (Edinburgh, Scotland) Scotland), 2018-09, Vol.55 (12), p.2618-2639
• Main Author: Dewilde, Caroline
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Affordability; Affordable housing; Demographics; Economic crisis; Economic trends; Households; Housing; Housing market; Income; Low income groups; Markets; Migration; Private sector; Rents; Rural areas; Rural communities; Rural urban migration; Sociodemographics; Supply & demand; Tenants; Trends; Urban areas; Welfare
• ISSN: 0042-0980; 1360-063X
• DOI: 10.1177/0042098017729077

The private rented sector (PRS) recently enjoyed a revival, in particular in the years before and after the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). At the same time however, affordability concerns have come to the fore. The main aim of this paper is to explain trends in housing affordability for lower-income households in the PRS across Western European countries, from a supply versus demand perspective. To this end we: (1) related trends in housing affordability to wider changes in housing systems, welfare regimes, demographic indicators and housing market financialisation; and (2) decomposed affordability trends in terms of rents and incomes, controlling for compositional shifts. We incorporated the spatial dimension by distinguishing between urban and rural regions. Although we could not explicitly test for the more fine-grained mechanisms relating housing market financialisation to increased ‘unaffordability’ of PRS-housing, our findings nevertheless warrant future research into this topic. In particular in countries with strong financialisation (Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal) decreasing affordability arises from the fact that during the period 1995–2007 private rent increases were not compensated for sufficiently by income growth. We furthermore found that across urban regions, between 1995 and 2007, affordability worsened through demand pressure arising from in-migration. Changes after the GFC (up to 2013) were more limited and diverse. 私有租赁业（PRS)近年来迎来了一次复兴，尤其是在大金融危机（GFC)前后。但是，与此 同时，对于可负担力的担心出现了。本文的主要目的是从供需关系角度解释西欧国家私有 租赁业低收入家庭住房可负担力的发展趋势。为此，我们：（1)将住房可负担力的趋势变 化与住房体系、福利体制、人口指标和住房市场金融化的更广泛变革相关联；（2 )在假设 结构要素性不变的情况下，从租金和收入角度分析了可负担力的变化趋势。我们通过区分 城市地区与农村地区，纳入了空间维度。虽然我们无法明确证明与住房市场金融化相关的 更细微机制导致私有租赁房屋日益“不可负担”，但我们的发现为未来这一主题的研宄提 供了依据。尤其是在强力金融化的国家（爱尔兰、荷兰、西班牙和葡萄牙），1995 - 2007 年期间私有房屋租金的增长导致的可负担力下降，并未由相应的收入增长充分补偿。我们 进一步发现，1995 - 2007年间在各个城市地区，内迁导致的需求压力恶化了可负担力。 GFC (截至2013年）之后的变化更有限，也更多样。