Tesi doctoral - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Geografia ; Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics, 2016

Inclou bibliografia.

Capítol 1.- Introduction. -- Capítol 2.- Literature review. -- Capítol 3.- Homeownership in southern European countries: similarities and divergent patterns. -- Capítol 4.- Non-headship as a competitive housing tenure option? Choices of active young adults in southern Europe, France, Germany and the UK. -- Capítol 5.- A multilevel analysis of the recent increase of home renting in Spanish young couples, 2001-2011. -- Capítol 6.- Change in the relationship between first-child birth and homeownership in Spain. -- Capítol 7.- Parenthood, residential movement and housing tenure in four southern European countries, France and Germany. -- Capítol 8.- Conclusions. -- References. -- Appendix

During the second half of the twentieth century, housing preferences towards homeownership converged in the majority of European countries. By the turn of the millennium, homeownership was the leading housing tenure in southern Europe. Taking this into consideration, this thesis aims to improve our understanding of the interrelationship between housing tenure, household formation and fertility in the beginning of the twenty-first century. With a focus on southern Europe, this thesis performs a comparative analysis guided by three objectives: (1) to explore the distinctive feature of the southern European housing system regarding homeownership and household formation patterns; (2) to explain the recent evolution of housing tenure distribution while accounting for individual and contextual factors; and (3) to analyse the role of housing tenure status in fertility. To tackle the first objective, this thesis uses cluster analysis with the European Union Statistics of Income and Living Conditions data to test the factors contributing to the homogeneity of the southern European housing system in the beginning of the twenty-first century. Additionally, by estimating logistic regression models, this thesis highlights the significance of heterogeneous patterns within the southern European group. Furthermore, the assumption that the homeownership rates in southern Europe are high is challenged using renewed measures of tenure rates that take the level of household formation into account. Regarding household patterns formation, by means of multinomial probit regression models, this thesis provides innovative findings on the housing decisions of active young adults in southern Europe and in three other European countries used as a representation of different welfare state regimes (France, Germany and the United Kingdom). With regards to the second objective, this research addresses the current increase in renting preference using the micro data of the Spanish census (2001 and 2011). Estimating multilevel logistic regression models, this study accounts for both individual and contextual factors, highlighting the role of housing prices stability in the likelihood of be a tenant and the influence of the internal geographic heterogeneity on individual housing choices. At the individual level, over time, there is a convergence process toward a greater acceptance of renting regardless of citizenship, type of partnership, or educational attainment of the young couple. Yet, individual heterogeneity became more determinant in the case of age and degree of urbanisation. Although with different signals, both processes lean towards an upsurge of renting at the early stages of a couple’s life. Concerning the third objective, this thesis first studies the Spanish case using the Spanish Survey of Household Finances (2008) and estimating probit regression models for three time frames. The results show that the relationship between homeownership and fertility is becoming increasingly problematic. Second, using the Eurosystem Household Finance and Consumption Survey (2008- 2011), this thesis compares southern European countries among themselves and with two European countries with distinct fertility rates and housing systems (France and Germany). Probit regression models and parametric frailty models reveal that the positive relationship between homeownership and having a first-child birth is not a southern European exception and that in Spain, France and Greece, to be a homeowner lowers the time ratio to the birth of the firstchild. Portraying the dynamic feature of housing systems, there are reasons to believe that the southern European housing system is changing. This thesis explores those signs of change with regards to their impact on the known features of the southern European housing system by looking at it from different standpoints (micro and macro level) and by emphasizing housing tenure status both as an outcome and as a determinant of an event.