HOUSING AS A PIECE IN THE OLD-AGE PUZZLE** The role of housing equity in old-age security in eight countries

Many housing and welfare researchers in the last few decades have dealt with the so-called trade-off debate concerning the trade-off between welfare and home ownership. Countries with a high home ownership rate have lower welfare arrangements. The debate is about the causality of this statistical relationship; is welfare low because the home ownership rate is high or is it the other way around. This issue focuses on households’ perceptions and how households find a balance between government, the market and the family in their provisions for old age concerning pension income and care. So far, little is known about how households perceive housing equity and to what extent they see it as a form of security or income source in old age in this period of facing the consequences of the financial crisis and when pension and care systems are under pressure. This contribution presents the results of interviews with 240 households in eight different countries. The aim is to contribute to this trade-off discussion by clarifying how households think and behave and by examining the extent to which housing equity plays a role in oldage strategies. Clearly the results show that collective arrangements will become less important and housing equity will most probably become a more important piece in the old-age-security puzzle.