No home for poor men: a comparative study of household debt and homeownership in Denmark and Turkey

Abstract

Homeownership rates have declined in several countries including Denmark and Turkey since 2010. A majority of the decline in homeownership has been observed among low income holders. This variation finding comparative case study compares similar patterns of neoliberal housing policies to examine wealth inequalities based on homeownership despite fundamental differences in housing markets and welfare state provision. The comparison of Denmark and Turkey reveals similar adoption of policies that support financialization as a strategy to recover from financial crises. This paper examines how states have supported financialization with policies that allowed deregulations in the housing market to create an enabling environment for construction and real estate-specific growth, and how neoliberal housing policies positioned homeownership, a wealth symbol, as the core tenet of asset-based welfare that increased wealth inequalities. The outcome of this paper shows that neoliberal housing policies have generated new forms of inequality between low and high-income earners to access housing in both countries in different ways to produce a similar outcome.