Beyond headcount statistics: Exploring the utility of energy poverty gap indices in policy design

Recent energy price spikes have led to increased energy poverty among low-income households living in inefficient homes. Accurate statistics on energy poverty help inform resource allocation and better target relief schemes and retrofit funds. Existing indicators are predominantly defined in terms of a headcount ratio – the share of population...

Toward Sustainable and Inclusive Housing: Underpinning Housing Policy as Design for Values

A perusal of the literature on housing debates reveals that the term ‘value’ is mostly applied to express the financial value of a house and is dealt with in economic literature. However, an alternative meaning of the word ‘value’ in the housing literature can be found in research into the values underlying housing preferences, applying research...

The role of family reciprocity within the welfare state in intergenerational transfers for home ownership: Evidence from Chongqing, China

Worldwide, housing is increasingly unaffordable for young people, many of whom rely on intergenerational transfers of assets to enter home ownership. This paper aims to qualitatively analyze the impacts of the welfare state and family reciprocity on young people's opportunity to access home ownership. Evidence from in-depth interviews with...

Why women own less housing assets in China? The role of intergenerational transfers

After three decades of housing reform in China, housing assets constitute a sizable share of family wealth but are distributed unevenly, as registered homeowners are predominantly male. This is partly because males generally have higher incomes than females and can therefore contribute more to the financing, but also because males receive more...

Redistribution, Growth, and Inclusion: The Development of the Urban Housing System in China, 1949-2015

This paper explains the development of the urban housing system in China from 1949 to 2011 with an emphasis on the factors driving housing inequality in each policy period. We argue that the logic underpinning the housing policy had shifted from socialist redistribution to the stimulation of growth in the process of market economy reform and has...

The Janus Face of Homeownership-based Welfare

This paper reflects on the different faces of asset-based welfare from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective. It shows that asset-based welfare can be perceived as a lever for welfare state restructuring but also as an instrument for poverty eradication. In most countries, asset-based welfare policies focus on stimulating home...