The unequal geography of declining young adult homeownership: Divides across age, class, and space

Across countries, the position of young adults on housing market has worsened over past decade. Young adults’ decreasing access to homeownership garnered particular attention. Most studies analysing entry focus micro-level determinants or national-level patterns and trends. This paper adds an important perspective by focusing spatial variations within a single country, unravelling pronounced inter-municipal differences in across age class. Our case is Netherlands, where we use full-population register data for 2011–2018 period analyse trends using range quantitative methods. findings highlight notable decrease owner-occupancy among Netherlands period. Such overall declines, however, belie clear class divisions, with decreases particularly concentrated low-income adults. Untangling dynamics reveals both geographic commonalities divergences. Declining was found 87% municipalities, suggesting common experience. Analyses also reveal stark disparities, strongest most urbanised regions, large cities. Spatially divergent exclusion are furthermore highly classed: widespread low income, while more spatially those high income. Finally, advanced regression modelling, explore municipal characteristics, revealing how local population factors may explain changing adult entry. The analyses emphasise links between unaffordability competition as worsening opportunities