Homeowner investor subjects as providers of family care and assistance

Megan Nethercote

Housing Studies, 2019, vol. 34, issue 6, 1037-1063

Abstract: This article asks: What becomes of the idealized asset-accumulating investor subject rallied in asset-based welfare policy and discourse in the context of mounting social risks facing families? It brings into dialogue two disconnected literatures: one on financialized subjectivities, drawing on post-structuralist and Foucauldian analysis, the other on welfare states drawing more heavily on comparative political economy. Drawing on homeowner interviews in Melbourne (Australia), it identifies how parent homeowners’ devise housing strategies to manage their children’s housing welfare risks. Their housing investment and landlordism strategies align with financialized subjectivities, but other strategies subvert or reject these subject positions. Its first contribution is to specify how an Australian refamilization of welfare responsibilities, including for housing, is unfolding as processes of financialization erode the efficacy of growing state social spending. Its second contribution is to challenge the individual subject of asset-based welfare (ABW) and introduce intergenerational assistance as an under-explored contingency for ABW projects, and further driver for welfare inequalities between and within generations.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02673037.2018.1515895 (text/html)
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:taf:chosxx:v:34:y:2019:i:6:p:1037-1063

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/chos20

DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2018.1515895

Access Statistics for this article

Housing Studies is currently edited by Chris Leishman, Moira Munro, Ray Forrest, Alex Schwartz, Hal Pawson and John Flint

More articles in Housing Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().