DRUTA - HOUWEL Working Paper Series - Working Paper 2 - … · 2014. 9. 3. · DRUTA! MeaningsandPractices! June2013!!! 2! SUBPROJECT TWO: MEANINGS OF HOUSING IN FAMILY WELFARE STRATEGIES

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HOUWEL WORKING PAPER SERIES

WORKING PAPER 2

SUBPROJECT TWO: MEANINGS OF HOUSING IN FAMILY WELFARE STRATEGIES ___

Oana Druta June 2013

HOUWEL ERC GRANT: 283881

CENTRE FOR URBAN STUDIES

DRUTA Meanings and Practices June 2013

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SUBPROJECT TWO: MEANINGS OF HOUSING IN FAMILY WELFARE STRATEGIES

Oana Druta, PhD Canditate Centre for Urban Studies University of Amsterdam

Abstract The purpose of this project is to examine housing practices in order to understand how

families use housing to meet welfare needs. The premise of the study is that in the context of

retrenching welfare states where increasing responsibilities for welfare provision fall on

households and families, housing becomes an integral part of strategies for accessing formal

and informal welfare provision. For example, buying or renting housing in close proximity to

parents or other family members can be a means of accessing informal childcare; relying on

the equity built up in the parental house to guaranty one’s mortgage can be a means of

accessing better quality housing through homeownership; using land property acquired by

parents or grandparents and rebuilding an old house into a new two-household house can be a

means for younger generations to achieve quality independent living and older generations to

ensure the support of their descendants in old age. What these examples point to are the

complex arrangements that housing, as a physical object with economic, social, and

locational attributes, is a part of in daily and long term “planning”. It is these arrangements

that we need to understand if we are to consider housing as a base of welfare, and it is the

purpose of this study to shed light on the ways in which households and families negotiate

structural constraints and opportunities inherent in the organization of the welfare system, the

structure of the housing market and in the shear physical nature of housing stocks in order to

achieve their welfare goals. The study is a comparative one, based on ethnographic fieldwork

in the following six countries: England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands and Romania.

NOTE: This research is being conducted as part of the ERC funded HOUWEL project, grant attributed to Prof.

Richard Ronald, University of Amsterdam. This paper is a proposal. Field research for this project will begin in

September 2013.

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Introduction Housing plays a fundamental role in shaping and framing practices of households and

families. It is the physical space that people inhabit, the home they leave and return to every

day, the social space where they meet those closest to them and where bonds develop

between family members and among friends. For many their house becomes at one point or

another in life a project of home building, into which resources, both material and emotional,

are poured. Housing, however, especially owned housing, is more than home and shelter.

Through the housing market, housing becomes a means for wealth accumulation and equity-

based consumption. The tying up of housing in flows of international capital has increased

the chances for wealth accumulation through housing, at the same time as it exposed gaps in

the ability of people operating in different housing markets and housing systems for actually

engaging in these practices. Furthermore, housing can be a means for wealth transmission

across generations, in the form in inheritance and inter-vivo financial or property transfers.

As such, housing represents the material base that structures relationships between

generations and at the same time is embedded in normative systems that guide reciprocal

behavior and solidarity.

All of these different dimensions of practice open up options available to households for

using housing to secure their wellbeing and welfare. However, these options are constrained

by different layers of formal and informal institutional arrangements. Family norms guiding

reciprocal behavior and associated with ideas of dependence and independence are one such

layer. Welfare state arrangements that determine different equilibriums between individual

responsibilities and social solidarity are another. Finally, the structure of the housing market

determines different degrees of financialization and embeddedness of housing in flows of

international capital.

The global financial crisis challenged the assumptions built into housing markets, and caused

a realignment of welfare policies in many advanced economies. It also exposed growing gaps

between generations in terms of the ability of households to accumulate wealth and sustain

their own welfare. In particular, younger generations starting on the housing market, found

themselves at a disadvantage compared to the older generations that benefitted from more

favourable economic conditions, more accessible housing markets and more generous

welfare states.


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It is in this context of instability and realignment and a study of housing practices can be

extremely useful for gauging changing meanings of housing and the creatively reworked

realities of everyday family lives.

Housing, welfare and the family: Defining a framework and field of research This project focuses on housing practices as they are embedded in family level strategies for

welfare provision in different housing and welfare system contexts.

Three levels of analysis can be identified in this study. The first level of housing practices

refers to specific actions that structure family life and home / housing situations. The second

level that of housing based welfare strategies focuses on housing choices/ decisions/ plans

that shape access to formal and informal welfare provision. These are complex arrangements

in which housing can be both a means and an end (as far as appropriate shelter is a welfare

goal). The study will hone in on informal welfare provision by extended family networks.

Finally the macro-level of structural forces inherent in the housing market and welfare

regime in which households and families operate offers the context for analyzing and

understanding micro-level behavior.

Delimiting a field for this study requires delving into literature that straddles multiple fields

of study including housing studies, material culture studies, welfare studies, and family and

relationship studies.

Housing practices Three domains of practice shape the meaning of housing (particularly housing property) as a

base of family welfare. Figure 1 below is a schematic representation of these domains. They

are usually studied under the umbrella of different disciplines, and rarely treated in an

integrated fashion. Studies related to the production of home and the material culture of home

spaces come usually from anthropology. Traditionally focusing on “primitive” societies and

analyzing houses as representations of a given social order (Bordieu, 1980), these studies

have more recently started considering material cultures in relation to consumption practices

and the meaning of home in different societies (Miller, 2001). Studies related to the

consumption of housing are more common in the field of housing studies. They focus on

homeownership as the quintessential form of housing consumption and the role of

homeownership in contemporary societies. They address questions regarding the use of

housing equity to support pensions or supplement incomes in periods of economic insecurity.

At the same time they analyze trends, attitude and behaviors of households on the housing

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market. Finally, studies related to housing wealth transmission, the generational contract and

intergenerational relations are more common in the field of family studies or gerontology.

Figure 1. Housing practices

The production of home and well-being The home has been associated with important categories of meaning in everyday life. It can

be a center of family life; a place of safety and retreat; a medium of security and

independence; a marker of social identity (Després 1991, Dupuis and Thorns, 1998) but also,

as feminist writers have pointed out, it can be a place of oppression and isolation (Mallett,

2004). Practices of home production such as setting up, renovating or refurbishing a home

relate directly to the well-being of individuals inhabiting that home and are indispensable to

understanding housing as a node of welfare provision. The enactment of these practices

represent, at times, occasions for affirming solidarity or ambivalence between members of

family networks, and underscore continuations or discontinuations of support.

Objects in the home can be considered material manifestations of social relationships (Miller,

2001). For this reason, a number of studies stemming from the discipline of anthropology

have analyzed objects in the home, as a means of understanding attitudes toward the home as

well as relationships that shape the meanings of home. Drazin’s (2001) study of the meaning


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of furniture in Romanian homes details the intricate webs of relationships that form around

pieces of furniture which in many occasions represent the collective efforts of parents and

relatives toward providing young households with appropriate homes. Daniels’s (2001) study

of Japanese homes explores the tensions between ideals of home living and the real lived

experiences of Japanese families as they are reflected in the arrangement of home spaces and

objects in the home.

Other studies in this tradition focused even more on the houses themselves as material objects

that influence practices of home living (domesticity) and relations between household

members (Cieraad, 2006, Daniels, 2010). Houses, and the households and families that

inhabit them are said to be mutually constituted, with agency on both the human side to shape

the material world of the home and on the material side of houses to structure everyday life

(Birdwell-Pheasant and Lawrence-Zuniga, 1999).

These studies offer important insights into the emotional significance of home and the social

relations that have the home as their backdrop. They also offer useful methods for examining

housing practices at the intersection between human and material worlds. However, for the

scope of this project, home production represents only one piece of the puzzle.

Housing consumption and economic stability Housing consumption practices are a second piece of that puzzle. They refer to ways in

which housing as an object of investment, as an asset (or burden), contributes to the

economic stability of households and families. Thus, practices such as home renovation or

refurbishment can also be interpreted as ways in which households increase the value of their

property and the equity that they can tap into in case of need. Practices such as buy-to-let in

the UK, which has seen an important expansion in the last decades, represents one clear

example of asset build up through households. On the flip side are practices of equity

withdrawal (whether to finance home improvement projects or expensive holidays), or

reverse mortgages that help older households tap into their equity to support their incomes

while not giving up their homes.

Homeownership as a means of accumulating wealth, and the ways in which households may

use this wealth to meet goals related to welfare represent the main focus of scholars dealing

with practices of housing consumption. Thus, there are studies that consider how housing

wealth could be a substitute pension in old age (Doling and Ronald, 2010), or how aging

households may use their housing wealth to pay for long term care (in the case of Japan)

(Izuhara, 2007). Comparative studies, including multiple European countries examined

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household attitudes toward the use of housing equity to fund income shortfalls in old age or

cover long term care (Toussaint, 2011, Toussaint et al., 2013, Helbrecht and Geilenkeuser,

2010, Jones et al., 2012). Their results were mixed, showing large differences in

understandings about what houses were for, and in what ways housing equity could be used.

It is my conjecture that a failure to understand the complex web of meanings and relations

that houses are usually a part of, accounts for the lack of depth of these studies. Their

treatment of households as independent units, acting on housing markets and in welfare

systems accounts for their poor understanding of the relational nature (Mason, 2004) of

housing and welfare choices.

What these studies address, however, are the differences in housing and welfare systems that

determine different meanings and practices in difference countries. Owner occupied houses

have not been created equal and there are considerable differences in the asset value of

owned property according to the physical properties of housing and the characteristics of

tenancy (Mandic, 2012). Given the fact that different countries possess different kinds of

housing stocks embedded in different housing systems and political discourses the role and

meaning of housing consumption will also be different. Gurney’s study of normalization

discourses in the UK offers a good insight into understanding how structural forces impinge

on daily practices (Gurney, 1999).

Bridging the first two domains of housing practices Smith et al. (2007) examined the

meanings of home consumption through equity borrowing. They conducted interviews with

UK homeowners who had tapped into their housing equity to finance a variety of projects

from home improvement to holidays abroad. They analyzed the meanings of home making

when this is tied in to mortgage based consumption (Cook et al, 2013), and conceptualized

the house as a hybrid material manifestation of home and money (Smith, 2008).

The transmission of (housing) wealth and intergenerational relations Finally, I will address housing practices related to the transmission of wealth. Relations

between generations play a particularly important role when considering housing as a base of

welfare. Assets, housing in particular, are at the center of the generational contract in which

inheritance is exchanged for elderly care. However, societal and demographic change

associated with the second demographic transition are challenging traditional

intergenerational arrangements. Inheritances are transmitted much later in life and are usually

no longer tied to obligations of care. Generational differences in ability to sustain self-

reliance through asset accumulation result in younger generations having to depend a lot


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more on older generations for financial or in-kind support. The extent to which families can

and do mobilize their property assets to support the welfare needs of their members, and the

form that family practices take also depend on changing characteristics of contemporary

families such as increasing fragmentation of households, and increasingly irregular family

forms (Izuhara, 2009).

Literature coming from the field of demography and family studies has examined

relationships between generations in detail, and housing practices such as co-residence of

parents and adult children, residential proximity of kin, financial transfers for homeownership

have been part of the efforts of scholars to understand the nature of family relations in

contemporary societies. Comparative studies in this line of study tend to be more often than

not quantitative in nature and examine interactions between different variables collected as

part of large multi-national surveys. Isengard and Szydlik (2012) examine patterns of co-

residence and near co-residence of parents and adult children using data from the SHARE

survey. They find clear clusters of countries in which co-residence is more or less of an

important practice. Albertini and Kohl (2012) using the same data set examine transfers

between generations both financial and in kind (through co-residence) and similarly divide

countries in Europe into different clusters or “transfer regimes.”

A counterbalancing relationship between characteristics of housing and housing markets and

the shape of intergenerational relations (Mulder, 2006) was also identified. Research in this

area has focused on the so called intergenerational transmission of homeownership. Using

data from the Netherland Kinship Panel Survery, Helderman and Mulder (2007) identify

important correlations between the characteristics of the housing market in which parents and

children operate and the probability of becoming a home-owner.

A few studies have taken as their unit of observation the household and examined how

families negotiate intergenerational welfare exchanges around housing assets using

qualitative research methods. However, these studies usually limit their scope to one country

(Finch and Mason, 2000, Mason, 2004, Heath and Clavert, 2013). Work by Izuhara (2009)

and Izuhara and Forrest (2012) are examples of studies that have taken a comparative

approach, but within a relatively limited range (comparing Japan and the UK, or comparing a

few countries in East Asia). Izuhara’s (2009) study also mainly considered inheritance

practices and issue related to the generational contract. Izuhara and Forrest (2012) examine

housing histories of three generations to assess whether familization or de-familization are

occurring. Their conclusions are that these two processes take place at different times and in

different situations, depending on structural constraints and opportunities along the life-

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course of a family line.

This last domain of housing practices is closest to the second level of analysis that I

mentioned at the beginning of this section – that of welfare strategies. They are practices that

involve housing in complex arrangements for the provision of welfare between generations.

The shape these practices take, however, is directly related to the two other domains outlined

earlier in the section. Socialization in the home and the bonds that develop with particular

home spaces shape feelings of solidarity or ambivalence between family members and

determine how these relationships develop through time in contemporary societies in which

negotiation is much more a feature of intergenerational relations than obligation (Finch and

Mason, 1994). On the other hand consumption practices of home and housing determine the

base of wealth a family can access at any given time.

Welfare strategies Welfare strategies are complex arrangements of practices imbued with meaning that involve

housing in (informal) welfare provision. The term household strategies has been used in the

past to examine various kinds of micro-level responses to structural constraints (Wallace,

2002). Unlike practices which focus on what people do, strategies involves a higher degree

of agency, and an active process of decision making (whether this may be long term planning

or the more familiar muddling through). In this study, I will use strategies to mean

arrangements that go beyond the individual household and involve extended family networks

in the provision of welfare. In other words, strategies are ways in which families incorporate

social constraints and creatively rework and overcome them in order to maximize welfare

benefits and opportunities for their members (Izuhara and Forrest, 2012).

The focus on the family is warranted. On the one hand, as discussed in greater detail above

one cannot talk about housing practices without considering intra-family relations. On the

other hand, one cannot talk about welfare provision without talking about the family. Though

downplayed in welfare research that focuses more on the interplay between the state and the

market in the provision of welfare, the family remains an important pillar, especially given

the rhetoric of retrenchment that welfare states have wedded in the past few decades and the

volatility of the market as a source of individual economic stability. Increasingly, feminist

welfare research (Lewis, 1997) and research stemming from family sociology (Matzke and

Ostner, 2010, Ochiai, 2009), have pushed for a triangle (or even diamond) view of welfare

provision in which the state, market and the informal sector (family and non-profit

organizations) play complementary roles. As welfare policies continue to stress individual


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responsibility over social solidarity, demographers and family historians anticipate a

convergence of welfare regimes toward a Mediterranean model in which families and kin

networks play a more prominent role (Viazzo, 2010). This view is supported by large

European studies of family interdependencies (Dykstra and Komter, 2012, Segalen, 2009).

But how should we operationalize family? Defining the family may prove rather complicated,

as no definition answers all desiderates. For the purpose of this project I take a definition of

family that is sufficiently inclusive to account for the diversity of family forms that may be

found in the countries considered by the study. Thus a family is a network of households that

share a family identity (Ueno, 1994). A household, on the other hand, is a group of

individuals, whether related by blood or not, that share the same living space at a given time.

Family identity is best thought of in terms of bonds of affection, association and mutual

assistance that bind different generations of a family (Szydlik, 2008). It follows that, a focus

on families (family networks) instead of individual households requires an understanding of

welfare provision as a function of solidarity (or ambivalence) between and within generations

that prompts different kinds of reciprocal behavior. The three dimension of solidarity match

the research focus on housing – an object to be passed between generations, or a basis for

transfers of money and provision of shelter (functional solidarity), but also “a home” – a

place where generations meet and care for each other (associational solidarity), and develop

emotional bonds (affective solidarity). The term solidarity does not preclude conflict or

ambiguity between generations. In fact, conflict is more likely to increase as the need for

solidarity increases, bringing generations closer and maximizing the occasion for conflict.

Solidarity and conflict probably exist on a continuum from the more harmonious

relationships through ambiguous relationships to the most conflictual relationships (Gaalen

and Dykstra, 2006). I expect that increasingly irregular family forms will result in the

manifestation of bonds of solidarity beyond the boundaries of the nuclear family, or even the

dyad parents-adult children.

To give more focus to the research, the design will pay particular attention to younger (starter)

households that have entered the housing market in the last decade. Societal changes that

characterized the last decades in all the countries of this study have put increased pressure on

the younger generation, raising questions about how will this generation negotiate growing

generational inequalities and changing opportunity structures. Questions related to housing

access and the pathways of young people through housing markets are at the heart of these

preoccupations (Clapham et al., 2010, Mckee, 2012, Forrest and Yip, 2012).

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Finally, it is worth thinking what exactly is informal welfare provision that reasonably relates

to housing. Here I identify two different categories. Direct welfare provision refers to the

informal provision of accommodation. Strategies for providing rent free living, co-residence

or near co-residence as in the case of the two-generation house (nisetai juutaku) in Japan are

a case in point here. Indirect welfare provision refers to families taking advantage of the

housing market to access informal welfare “services” or to finance welfare provision. First, I

refer here to residential proximity as a strategy for accessing childcare and/or elderly care.

Second, I refer to strategies that rely on housing equity withdrawal to finance, for example,

access into homeownership by adult children.

Housing systems and welfare regimes Understanding housing practices and their relationship to welfare provision cross-nationally

requires an overarching framework for comparison. Esping-Andersen’s (1990) welfare

regimes theory has been the most popular, yet widely debated, conceptual framework for

comparing and understanding differences between countries with respect to their welfare

arrangements. Esping-Andersen proposed a model that posited three types of welfare regimes

– liberal, social-democratic, and corporatist – each of these types representing “qualitatively

different arrangements between state, market and family.” His main argument, that welfare

states were shaped along lines of conflict between working class alliances and the interest of

capital, was contested and reworked extensively during the last two decades. Authors setting

out to classify more countries using the framework found it difficult to apply empirically and

defined additional forms of welfare regimes when the original categories did not fit.

Examples are the familialistic regime of Southern Europe (Allen et al., 2006), the

developmentalist regime of East Asia, and the post-socialist conservative regime in post-

socialist Eastern Europe. Feminist scholars decried the exclusive focus on the state and the

market of the original conceptualization that discounted the role of families and the unpaid

work of women in welfare provision (Lewis, 1997). Finally, some authors questioned the

validity of the term altogether (Kasza, 2002), but acknowledged that if the concept has

survived and produced debate there is ‘something to it’ that makes it valuable (Rice, 2012).

In her paper, Rice (2012) sets out to define an ideal typical welfare regime that could be an

analytical tool beyond its historical and cultural underpinnings She identifies three

dimensions in her definition: the cultural dimension responsible for norms and values, the

institutional dimension determining the shape of the welfare system, and finally, the socio-


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structural effects that these formal and informal institutions determine particularly with

regard to stratification and social inequality.

For the purpose of this research, the concept is appealing as it encompasses different

contextual elements that impact systems of welfare provision, making it useful as a

background concept informing comparison. However, it is beyond the scope of this research

to engage with the welfare regime debate in order to refine the concept. Therefore, the

definition of welfare regime that I adopt is a rather loose and all-encompassing one. Welfare

regimes are a set of formal and informal institutions (Pfau-Effinger, 2005, Rice, 2012) that

translate into “qualitatively different arrangements between state, market and family” (Esping

Andersen, 1991) in the provision of welfare. Figure 2. below attempts to plot the countries

participating in this study based on the dominant understandings of their institutional contexts.

Figure 2. Welfare regimes and the welfare mix

The framework of welfare regimes is also appealing as it has been the preferred framework

within housing studies for understanding differences between countries in terms of their

housing systems. Jim Kemeny’s 1995 study defines housing welfare regimes using a binary

framework that distinguishes between collectivistic welfare systems – with a unitary housing

system- and individualistic ones – with a dualistic housing system. Tenure was a main

element that differentiated unitary and dualistic housing systems, with large public rental

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sectors characterizing unitary systems while private home ownership and a residual rental

sector characterized dualistic ones. Kemeny’s main theory was that the size of the owner

occupied sector is inversely proportional with the size of the welfare state – a phenomenon

dubbed “‘the big trade-off’ between home ownership and welfare” (Kemeny, 2005).

However, his arguments are controversial, especially in light of home ownership becoming

the “closest that we can observe to a single, central, universal development” within the

housing field (Fahey and Norris, 2010) across nations.

Changes in housing systems associated with the rise of homeownership, as a dominant form

of tenure, however, stand at the base of this research for it is the realization that an important

base for welfare provision exists in owner-occupied housing that initially prompted debates

about the role of housing in households economies of welfare.

Research Questions Based on the framework outline above a general research question for this project can be

formulated: How do families use housing as a way to achieve welfare goals in different

welfare regimes contexts? This question can be broken down into three questions each

referring to the domains of practice outlined above.

1. How do families use homes as social spaces in which daily practices of home

production set the stage for negotiations of assistance and care?

2. How do families rely on housing consumption to sustain their economic and financial

well-being?

3. How do families use housing as a means of transferring wealth across generations and

ensuring social reproduction?

The following specific empirical question will guide journal article preparation for the

dissertation. The question focus on the intersection between the different domains of home

and housing practices outlined above (see Figure 1).

1. How are co-residence (or near co-residence) negotiated as family based informal

accommodation provision?

2. How do co-residence and residential proximity to kin facilitate households’ access to

informal care and practical assistance?

3. What is the role of inter-vivo transfers and informal (rent free) accommodation

provision in facilitating transitions of (starter) households on the housing market?


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4. How do (starter) households set up home and how do family networks help make that

possible through financial or in kind assistance? What is the meaning that households

give to homemaking?

Generating a large and comparable qualitative data set of housing practices and their meaning

with respect to welfare provision is the most important aim of this study. This data set will

constitute the base for inductive theorizing, taking a grounded theory approach. Therefore,

propositions will be formulated and tested in the course of the empirical fieldwork, and not at

the outset of research. Hypothesis testing is not the aim of this study.

The data For this study qualitative (partially ethnographic) work will be conducted in the six countries.

The fieldwork will be conducted in collaboration with local partners in each of the countries.

There will be 40 households interviews conducted in each of the countries. The households

will be selected according to a detailed sampling strategy.

Sampling design There are multiple levels of case selection in this study. Figure 3. below outlines the various

level and their connection with each other. For each country, representing a different welfare

regime context, one urban area will be selected as base for fieldwork. The urban area will

help better define a specific housing market context. Household interviews, 40 for each of the

countries will elicit housing histories from which welfare provision strategies will be distilled

for a number of family networks.

Household (40)

Family (≃10)

Urban area (1)

Country (1)

Housing histories

Welfare strategies

Housing market context

Welfare regime context

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Figure 3. Case selection diagram

Country selection The six countries where fieldwork will be conducted – UK, Netherlands, Germany, Romania,

Italy and Japan – represent as much variation in welfare regime trajectories as considered

theoretically acceptable. Sampling follows Esping-Andersen's classification – UK as a liberal

regime, The Netherlands as a social-democratic regimes with corporatist elements, Germany

as traditional corporatist regimes. The three additions are considered necessary in light of

subsequent theoretical development – Romania represents an Eastern European post-

communist conservative regime, Japan an East Asia developmentalist regime and Italy a

Southern European “familialist” regime (Ronald, 2010).

Urban area selection If the country level of case selection offers the possibility to investigate the ways in which

households negotiate strategies for meeting welfare needs within the structural constraints of

different welfare state arrangements, the “urban area” level of case selection allows for the

investigation of housing market factors that shape the adaptive behavior of households.

Though the larger project focuses particularly on countries, this project with its reliance on

fieldwork at the local level is uniquely positioned to understand how do different housing

markets constrain or enable households. One urban area will be selected in each of the

countries as a main base for field research, though there will be no strict confinement of field

research to one city. Urban areas with over 1 million inhabitants but no more than 2.5 million

inhabitants will be selected to ensure enough variety of neighborhoods in terms of housing

types and socio-economic characteristics of households..

Household selection For the lowest level of case selection, that of the household, and intentional stratified

sampling technique will be used, with two goals: 1) explore as much variety as possible in

housing practices; 2) investigate in greater detail the composition of family networks and

their roles in shaping housing practices of individuals and households in the different country

contexts.

Step 1: Selecting anchor households First, a number of anchor households will be selected to account for as much variety as

possible to capture given the size of the study, on the following four criteria:

Housing Variables Household Variables Housing type Education


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Tenure type Household composition

Given the interest of this project in understanding relations between generations and changes

in the meanings and practices of households in the current climate of welfare state

retrenchment and economic downturn, selected anchor households should be starter

households – households who have entered the housing market in the last 10 years.

Step 2: Exploring family networks The second step of household sampling aims at investigating in greater detail the composition

and roles of family networks in housing practices. Interviewing within a kin group, has

become a preferred method for investigating relations between generations. In addition, given

the focus of this study on everyday home and housing practices and the nature of family life,

investigating family networks is a natural choice. This type of interviewing goes (whenever

possible) beyond interviewing parents-children dyads and considers multiple generations and

extended relations. For example, Izuhara and Forrest’s investigation of intergenerational

dynamics through housing histories in East Asia (Izuhara and Forrest, 2011) relies on

interviews with three generations of the same family. Finch and Mason (2000) used a similar

network technique, interviewing different members of kin groups in order to understand the

nature of family obligations and responsibilities in England.

Members of the family networks to be considered here can be, parents, grandparents,

aunts/uncles, bothers/sisters, cousins, etc.

Interview design Interviews will be 60-90 minutes long and will elicit narratives regarding choices or plans of

purchase, improvement, maintenance, rebuilding of housing (property), the motivations

(opportunities and constraints) that prompted those choices as well as the social relations that

underscored them. They will focus on a time scale starting from the time the interviewees

established (attempted to establish) some form of independent living until the present. This

time scale will depend on the responded.

Comparability is one of the most important aspects of the interview design. Thus, the same

interview schedule will be used in all six countries. Only minor adaptation will be performed

to account for the local context and the interests of local partners.

The interview guide consists of three modules. The first module investigates housing

trajectories in order to collect basic information about the housing history of each household.

It also asks about decision-making processes behind housing choices. The second module

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focused more in depth on specific housing practices and relationships within family networks

that develop around exchanges of housing/home “resources.” This module ends with the

sketching of a relational map. The last module deals with practices of home/housing

investment and aims to tease out values attached to the home and house

Contribution This study will contribute significantly to enriching the empirical record of housing practices

in Europe and Japan. Cross-national comparative projects are rare and in general consider

their qualitative parts as accessories for their quantitative analyses. This study aims to correct

that by using a much more precise methodology for collecting the data, and relying on

ethnographic tenets for collecting qualitative data.

From a theoretical point of view the study will contribute to enriching debates on the life

course – particularly with respect to the changing life courses of young people, and the role

of older generations in shaping these life-courses. At the same time the project will contribute

to a growing literature on the meaning of home, attempting to bridge the debates in three

main fields – anthropology, materiality studies, geography and housing studies. Finally, it

will attempt to develop a theoretical model for integrating qualitative research results into

housing policy thinking.

References 1. Albertini, M. and Kohli, M. (2012) The Generational Contract in the Family: An Analysis

of Transfer Regimes in Europe, European Sociological Review (Online advance

publication)

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Documents

DRUTA - HOUWEL Working Paper Series - Working Paper 2 - … · 2014. 9. 3. · DRUTA! MeaningsandPractices! June2013!!! 2! SUBPROJECT TWO: MEANINGS OF HOUSING IN FAMILY WELFARE STRATEGIES