Varieties of housing inequality patterns in Europe

Goal: To jointly analyse different approaches to housing inequality in search of similarity patterns across various coexisting housing regimes in Europe.Research hypothesis: Each variety of residential capitalism (i.e. housing regime) exhibits its own pattern of housing inequalities.Research method: Using microdata from the newest Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) wave 2021 [for Poland, data from the wave 2017 was used], we calculated various measures of housing inequality for 20 EU member states. We consider housing space inequality and the size of multiple homeownership, as well as gross and net housing wealth inequality, both for the whole population and for homeowners only. Additionally, we have added Eurostat data on housing cost overburden and housing over- and undercrowding rates. On this data set we performed k-means cluster analysis to search for patterns of similarity between the analysed countries.Main findings: The calculations showed that the k-means cluster composition almost perfectly overlapped with the classifications of housing regimes in Europe. In other words, we have identified that each variety of residential capitalism exhibits its own distinct housing inequality patterns. In statist countries such as Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and France, there are high housing wealth inequalities but much lower inequalities in housing space and costs. In turn, corporatist countries such as Belgium, Ireland, and Finland exhibit medium wealth inequalities but high housing space and cost inequalities. Mediterranean member states, also denoted as countries with a commodified familial model of residential capitalism, have developed the largest class of homeowners, where, on average, 18% of households own two or more residential estates. This increases housing wealth inequalities, especially when considering mortgage debt, but has no effect on space inequalities which is one of the lowest among all analysed countries. Finally, Central and Eastern European countries, also called super-ownership states, which exhibit a non-commodified familial model of residential capitalism, have the lowest housing wealth inequalities, with 72% of households owning just one residential property, which they occupy, but they have very high space inequalities, with almost a quarter of the population living in overcrowded dwellings and medium to large housing cost inequalities. These results indicate that each housing regime requires a unique housing policy approach to mitigate future housing inequalities.