Households and Housing: Choice and Outcomes in the Housing Market

by Frans Dieleman

Overview

Residential relocation is the household decision that generates housing consumption changes. It is not merely a decision about changing locations; it is also a decision about tenure about whether to own or to rent. Research into housing markets has been largely focused on the process of changing from renting to owning, as most countries in the Western world have moved from predominantly rental societies to societies of homeowners.

Households and Housing is designed to demonstrate the interconnections between the housing stock and households. The focus is on understanding the demand for housing and the way in which the demand is fulfilled as households select housing. This book is concerned with both the decision to move one's residence and the resulting type of housing choice. The housing supply the stock of dwellings is the context within which households make choices and acquire housing.

The authors use the concepts of life course, housing career, and housing hierarchy to trace the movement of households through the housing market. They paint a comprehensive picture of housing consumption by age, income, and tenure choice, illustrated with nearly 150 figures and tables. US housing market data are contrasted with data from the Netherlands to document the differential effects of government intervention. This is the most up-to-date analysis available on the dynamics of housing choices and housing markets.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138525269
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/06/2017
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

1: Housing Choices in the United States and the Netherlands; 2: Housing and the Life Course; 3: Residential Mobility and the Consumption of Housing Space; 4: Housing Choice and Housing Consumption; 5: Economic, Policy, and Geographical Impacts on Housing Choices; 6: Outcomes of Housing Choices

Editorial Reviews

Examines the question of matching in two contrasting housing markets<- ->the United States and the Netherlands. The authors' contention throughout is that the process of housing choice in the Western world shows striking regularities across very dissimilar national contexts, and that the differences in market behavior are in the details and at the margins. The matching of households and houses is strongly correlated with the same microlevel individual circumstances and macrolevel economic fluctuations in different countries. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

No other book presents such a clear understanding of the factors that influence housing choices, supports that understanding with solid evidence, and teaches readers how to perform their own investigations.” — R. A. Beauregard, Choice “Households and Housing provides extensive coverage of the relationship between life course events and the way households select housing units. As promised by the authors, this book is closely tied to the way planners, geographers, and sociologists view housing choice, rather than to the way economists do. Clark and Dielman describe their focus as the interaction between the demographic characteristics of households and the economic and spatial context of the marketplace… The book is well written and well organized… Clark and Dielman’s approach to housing consumption is distinguished from that of an economist by their detailed discussion of the life course paradigm and its use in understanding tenure choice in housing markets… Research on the interconnectedness of population studies and housing choices serves to expand our knowledge about the distribution of housing services across income and ethnic groups. Households and Housing complements the growing body of literature on “housing demography”… This book’s comprehensive view on the housing choice process and its questions about the role of government intervention in housing markets should put it on the required reading list for students in housing classes, as well as for researchers and policy makers who work in the housing field.” —Margaret S. Murray, Housing and Real Estate “As the title suggests, this book is about housing choices. The authors focus on two aspects of housing choices: the decision to move and the quantity of housing consumed at the destination. The authors compare housing choices in two very different housing markets: the United States and the Netherlands… One of the main points of the book is to contrast the two housing markets. This is of interest since the government plays a much larger role in the Dutch housing market than in the U.S.” —Robin Dubin, Journal of Regional Science “Clark and Dieleman have been at the forefront of these [housing market] developments so it is not surprising that their book represents a sophisticated and balanced account of residential choice and the urban housing market. In particular, they explore how households choose housing and the way in which this process is interwoven with transitions in the life course… [D]ata are drawn from two rather dissimilar housing markets: the U.S. and the Netherlands. As a result, observations can be made concerning the relative roles of individual preferences, market forces, and government regulations… [T]his book provides an impressive empirical analysis of the relationships between households and housing within different types of markets. Sophisticated statistical techniques, which are briefly summarized in an appendix, are expertly employed to analyze complex datasets, while the research is guided throughout by such theoretically rich concepts as life-course transitions and housing careers.” —Martin Cadwallader, Annals of the Association of American Geographers “The book’s fundamental interest is in the process of housing choice. The examination takes place via an analysis of comparative data from the United States and the Netherlands… It is a worth product of its genre. Clark and Dieleman aim to describe the connections between households and housing stock. In particular, they seek an understanding of the distribution of households, the demand for housing, the way in which demand is met, and the influences on the choices made by households… [T]he principal readers of this book will be graduate students and urban academics interested in considering housing choice courtesy of a life-course analysis. Even so, I believe a wider audience from migration and population studies as a whole would welcome the opportunity to deliberate on the steps Clark and Dieleman take to develop the sub-discipline. There are however, some valuable contributions to geography in this work, particularly in terms of the authors’ application of the relatively recent life-course technique, and also in their presentation of data on housing choice in two such disparate developed countries.” —Michelle Thompson-Fawcett, European Planning Studies "Essential reading for anyone with an interest in the economic, social, political, and cultural implications of the housing market." —Midwest Book Review "[A] comprehensive view of the housing choice process . . . Put it on the required reading list for students in housing classes." —APA Journal

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