Housing for Health: Does the Market Work?

Susan J Smith, Donna Easterlow and Moira Munro
Additional contact information
Moira Munro: School of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University, Chadwick Building, Riccarton Campus, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, Scotland

Environment and Planning A, 2004, vol. 36, issue 4, 579-600

Abstract: Markets are mechanisms for distributing goods and services according to people's ability to pay. They are also investment vehicles which can be used to secure financial gains as economies expand. Housing markets embrace both these features, and are popular in Britain as a way of maximising residential choice at the same time as protecting and enhancing personal wealth. All markets create winners and losers, but no systematic social differences in either risks or gains are expected. However, this paper shows that, as home ownership has become the British housing norm, people experiencing ill-health are one social group who can struggle to reap its benefits, either as a consumption good or as a financial asset. The way housing markets (currently) work may therefore tend to reinforce the health divide, though this is neither a necessary nor inevitable state of affairs.

Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a3672 (text/html)

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:sae:envira:v:36:y:2004:i:4:p:579-600

DOI: 10.1068/a3672

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Environment and Planning A
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().