Homeownership Regimes and Low Fertility

This paper investigates the association between the level of fertility and the organization of homeownership in Western countries. It distinguishes four homeownership regimes, based on the share of owner-occupied housing and access to mortgages. It is argued that one homeownership regime is particularly associated with problematic housing-market entry and, therefore, unfriendly to family formation: the ‘difficult’ regime, which combines a high share of owner-occupation and low access to mortgages. It is found that countries with this particular homeownership regime have the lowest levels of fertility.