Reserved for the poor? Social housing in a liberal market economy

Peter A Kemp

Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2025, vol. 41, issue 1, 167-178

Abstract: Since 1980, social housing has undergone a fundamental transformation in England. In the 1970s, three out of ten households, the majority of whom were not poor, lived in council housing. And during that decade local authorities built on average over 100,000 house a year. Today, however, local authorities accommodate only one in 16 households in England, most of whom are poor or disadvantaged. And as council housing has become increasingly reserved for the poor, its public image has also deteriorated. Furthermore, local authorities now build only a few thousand new homes a year. Non-profit housing associations have grown from a relatively minor part of the housing system in the 1970s to a major provider of social housing today. Taken together, these two forms of social housing are landlords to only one in six households. This paper examines this transformation in social housing and its role in the wider welfare state. It looks at why and how this transformation came about; examines the legacy that the decline of council housing has left behind; discusses the rise of non-profit housing associations; and considers the prospects for social housing.

Keywords: social housing; council housing; right to buy; residualization; Thatcherism; welfare safety net; temporary accommodation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oxrep/graf006 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxford:v:41:y:2025:i:1:p:167-178.

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy is currently edited by Christopher Adam

More articles in Oxford Review of Economic Policy from Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().