The changing role of housing assets in post-socialist countries

摘要

The paper discusses the ways and the extent to which home ownership in post-socialist societies represents a potential to serve as an additional source of welfare. First, the specific institutional context is observed, highlighting how during transition collectivist forms of welfare and housing provision gave way to more individualised risks coverage, thus strengthening the role of wealth and establishing home ownership on a massive scale. Secondly, the actual possibilities of home ownership to serve as a latent wealth reservoir are observed. To highlight the capacities and limitations of home ownership to sustain, store and release wealth, selected characteristics of households and of their housing are empirically examined by using data from EQLS. A relatively high incidence of unfit housing and of economic hardship and deprivation were found among homeowners, indicating their very limited capacity to store and sustain the wealth contained in their housing. This is particularly pronounced in comparison to West Europe. However, significant diversity was found also among post-socialist countries, as distinguished in three sub-groups; in the Central East European sub-group, the limitations were found distinctively less frequently.