Dualization in employment and housing market outcomes: insiders versus outsiders

Past decades of economic growth, relatively widespread employment security and expanding mortgage markets witnessed growing homeownership sectors. The financial crisis of 2007 has undercut the foundations of this growth... [ view full abstract ]

Past decades of economic growth, relatively widespread employment security and expanding mortgage markets witnessed growing homeownership sectors. The financial crisis of 2007 has undercut the foundations of this growth evidenced by a rise in other tenures or delayed housing independence. These housing outcomes are, to a great extent, consequences of more fundamental changes in labour markets. The very same processes of financialisation that fuelled growth in homeownership have also led to a decline in the secure, well-paid jobs that are the usual preconditions of taking on housing loans. Across advanced economies, an increasingly dualized labour market has been apparent with disparities between securely employed market-insiders and a growing proportion of precarious market-outsiders. Through a micro-level quantitative analysis of European data, this paper explores how dynamics of dualization of the labour market translate into dualization in housing market outcomes - investigating growing divides between those more successful on the housing market, including multiple property owners, and those shut out from homeownership. Degrees of labour market insider-outsider status are further explored in terms of parental labour market status taking into account intergenerational dimensions of dualization.