Richard Ronald

Allison Alexy

In the Japanese language the word ‘ie’ denotes both the materiality of homes and family relations within. The traditional family and family house - often portrayed in ideal terms as key foundations of Japanese culture and society - have been subject to significant changes in recent years. This book comprehensively addresses various aspects of family life and dwelling spaces, exploring how homes, household patterns and kin relations are reacting to contemporary social, economic and urban transformations, and the degree to which traditional patterns of both houses and households are changing. The book contextualises the shift from the hegemonic post-war image of standard family life, to the nuclear family and to a situation now where Japanese homes are more likely to include unmarried singles; childless couples; divorcees; unmarried adult children and elderly relatives either living alone or in nursing homes. It discusses how these new patterns are both reinforcing and challenging typical understandings of Japanese family life.

Continuity and Transformation

Home and Family in Japan

Rowan Arundel

The twenty-first century has so far been characterized by ongoing realignments in the organization of the economy around housing and real estate. Markets have boomed and bust and boomed again with residential property increasingly a focus of wealth accumulation practices. While analyses have largely focussed on global flows of capital and large institutions, families have served as critical actors. Housing properties are family goods that shape how members interact, organise themselves, and deal with the vicissitudes of everyday economic life. Families have, moreover, increasingly mobilized around their homes as assets, aligning household transitions and practices towards the accumulation of property wealth. The capacities of different families to realise this, however, are highly uneven with housing conditions becoming increasingly central to growing inequalities and processes of social stratification. This book addresses changing relationships between families and their homes over the latest period of neo-liberalization. The book confronts how transformations in households, life-course transitions, kinship and intergenerational relations shape, and are being shaped by, the shifting role of property markets in social and economic processes. The chapters explore this in terms of different aspects of home, family life and socioeconomic change across varied national contexts.

Families, Housing and Property Wealth in a Neoliberal World

Marja Elsinga

In context of ongoing transformations in housing markets and socioeconomic conditions, this book focuses on past, current and future roles of home ownership in social policies and welfare practices. It considers owner-occupied housing in terms of diverse meanings and manifestations, but in particular the part played by housing tenure in the political, socioeconomic and demographic changes that have characterized the pre- and post-crisis era. The intensified promotion of home ownership in recent decades helped stimulate an increasing orientation towards the private consumption of housing, not only as a home, but also an asset – or possibly speculative vehicle – that enhances household economic capacity and can be transferred to children or other family, or even exchanged for other goods. The latest global financial crisis, however, made it clear that owner-occupied housing markets and mortgage sectors have become deeply embedded in networks of socioeconomic interdependency and risk. This collection engages with numerous debates on housing and society in a range of developed societies from North America to Asia-Pacific to North, South, East and West Europe. Interdisciplinary contributors draw upon diverse empirical data to explore how housing and home ownership has become so embedded in polity, economy and household welfare conditions in various social and cultural contexts. Another concern is what lies beyond home ownership considering the integration of housing systems with economic growth and social stability appears to be unravelling. This volume speaks to public debates concerning the future of housing markets, policy and tenure, providing deep and provocative insights for academics, students and professionals alike.

Housing, Welfare and Society

Beyond Home Ownership

J. F. Doling

Home ownership sectors in most European countries have grown in size. Whatever assets European households have acquired in recent decades, real estate appears to form a significant element in wealth portfolios. Frequently, national governments have been active in promoting the shift in tenure balance. The general question pursued in this book is about the gains and losses accruing to individual households by virtue of their position as home owners. The focus, here, is on financial gains and losses. It also concerns the losses, in the form of repayment risk, related to difficulties that some households may experience in meeting housing loan repayment schedules. The immediate background to this volume is the Home Ownership and Globalisation: Building on Home Ownership: Housing Policies and Social Strategies Conference held in Delft, the Netherlands. Hosted by OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, Delft University of Technology, it was held under the auspices of the European Network of Housing Researchers.

Richard Ronald

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