14 July 2015
The tenure gap in electoral
participation. Comparing
homeowners and tenants
across various housing
regimes.
HOWCOME
No. 11
Changing Housing Regimes and
Trends in Social and Economic Inequality
HOWCOME Working Paper Series
Stéfanie André
Caroline Dewilde
Ruud Luijkx
Department of Sociology, Tilburg University
www.tilburguniversity.edu/howcome
Funded by the
European Research Council
Grant Agreement No. 283615
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The tenure gap in electoral participation
Comparing homeowners and tenants across housing regimes
Stéfanie André, Caroline Dewilde and Ruud Luijkx (Tilburg University, the Netherlands)
Last updated: July 14th 2015
Abstract
Homeownership is assumed to have a positive impact on electoral participation, because homeowners have
more political trust, possess socio-economic characteristics that also coincide with voting and tend to have
longer lengths of residence in the current home, giving them opportunities to build a social network which
could enhance voting. In this paper, we research if such an effect can be found in 18 European countries
and the United States in 2004 (prior to the economic crisis) and if the tenure gap in voting, which differs
by housing regime, can be explained with the different selection of people into tenures in these regimes and
the different length of residence of the tenures. We find that in most countries, controlled for selection,
homeowners have a higher propensity to vote, and that the differential tenure gap in voting between housing
regimes can partly be explained with differences in selection into homeownership and in length of
residence-effects between these regimes. Interestingly, we find that the length of residence-effect has an
independent effect as long as we do not control for selection into homeownership, after controlling for
selection we no longer find an effect of length of residence.
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Introduction and Theoretical Background
In many countries, the promotion of homeownership has been used as a policy instrument by governments
in order to achieve economic, social and political goals (Bratt, 2012b; Dietz & Haurin, 2003; McCarthy,
Van Zandt, & Rohe, 2001). Homeownership has been used to stabilize and stimulate the economy, and to
provide people with a private safety net through the promotion of wealth accumulation, as part of the socalled asset-based welfare strategy aimed at low-income households (Sherraden & McBride, 2010). A
social goal of homeownership policy has been to rejuvenate deteriorated neighborhoods and quell social
and racial tensions. Homeownership is furthermore supposed to have a positive effect on housing quality
and home maintenance and on involvement in, and hence improvement of, the neighborhood. With regard
to the political consequences, it has been argued that homeownership, by giving people a stake in society,
promotes confidence in the government and leads to empowerment of citizens, which in turn induces
participation in the political process, enhancing democratic legitimacy (Mansfield, Van Houtven, & Huber,
2001; McCabe, 2012). One way to enhance democratic legitimacy and influence social policy is through
political participation.
In this paper, our main interest lies with the presumed positive effect of homeownership on political
participation. So far, the effect of homeownership on political participation, with a focus on voting
propensity, has mainly been researched for the United States (US). Rossi and Weber (1996), like others,
found a homeownership effect on local voting in the US, but did not use appropriate statistical controls.
DiPasquale and Glaeser (1999) found that homeowners vote more often in local elections, and that about
half of this effect was explained by length of residence. McCabe (2013) found that homeowners are more
likely to vote in local and national elections, where length of residence and respondents’ considerations
with regard to their financial investment in a certain locality explained a third of the relationship. On the
contrary, Engelhardt, Eriksen, Gale, and Mills (2010) found no effect for low-income homeowners in the
US. These later studies controlled for other important correlates of both homeownership and voting, like
age, gender, marital status, income and education. Comparative research on the – presumed – political
consequences of homeownership is scarce: only two studies compared the US with a European country.
DiPasquale and Glaeser (1999) found that German homeowners, controlling for length of residence, also
vote more often in local elections. Glaeser and Sacerdote (2000) found no effect of homeownership on local
voting in Germany, but they did find a positive homeownership-effect in the US.
More recently, several studies have researched the impact of homeownership, in particular the
potential to accumulate private housing wealth under different housing regimes, on welfare attitudes – more
specifically support for redistribution by the welfare state. André and Dewilde (forthcoming) found that
homeowners are less supportive of redistribution than tenants, varying with age, income and housing regime
context. They also showed that in countries in which homeownership is more financialized, support for
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redistribution is lower and this effect was stronger for homeowners than for tenants. Ansell (2014) found
that house price changes are associated with changes in social policy preferences, and that housing wealth
seems to work as a self-supplied insurance against life events: owners experiencing house price appreciation
become less supportive of government redistribution. He also showed that right-wing parties respond to
changes in voter preferences based on house prices, by cutting down on redistributive spending during
housing booms. However, the missing link in this research is electoral participation. If homeowners do not
have a higher propensity to vote than tenants, or do not have a higher propensity to change their voting
preferences following housing booms and busts, this will not change policy outcomes. Therefore, in this
paper the main focus is on a specific element of these assumptions: the impact of homeownership on
electoral participation as a particular form of political participation.
Recent electoral participation research has focused on explaining differences in turnout between
social groups across countries, for example the gender gap (Beauregard, 2014; Isaksson, Kotsadam, &
Nerman, 2013), the class gap (Anderson & Beramendi, 2012), the educational gap (Armingeon & Schädel,
2014) and the generational gap in electoral participation (Górecki, 2013). In addition, we propose to
research the difference in turnout between homeowners and tenants, i.e. the tenure gap in electoral
participation. Such a political cleavage has for instance been found in California between voting
homeowners and non-voting tenants, strengthening racial differences in voting (Barreto, Marks, & Woods,
2007).
We improve upon earlier research in three ways. We, first of all, extend older research on electoral
participation which has focused only on the US and Germany (DiPasquale & Glaeser, 1999; Rossi & Weber,
1996) by comparing the US with 18 European countries, using more recent data. This comparison is
interesting, since findings of American studies have been used to justify homeownership policy in Europe,
while the history of American homeownership is very different, also from an ideological perspective. For
example, in the US homeownership has been used as a strategy to motivate people to migrate to the US,
develop the land and create a civic community (Bratt, 2012a). Under these circumstances, we would expect
a positive effect of homeownership on political participation. In Europe on the other hand, in particular in
those countries in which homeownership was promoted early on, the main motivation was to quell social
unrest and to prevent the spread of urban socialist ghetto’s by means of suburban homeownership for
workers (e.g. Goossens, 1983). Through their mortgages, workers are tied to the economic system – they
have a stake in the stability of the system and furthermore, they need their jobs to pay for the mortgage
(Castells, 1977; Engels, 1887 [1975]). The effect of this dependence on the powers that be on electoral
participation is, however, ambiguous: while – based on their housing interests – homeowners may have
increased confidence in the government, and thus may be more inclined to participate in the political
process, they are at the same time discouraged – given their interest in a stable system – from defending
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other interests (e.g. with regard to income or working conditions) through unionization or other political
activities. Extending this argument, national homeownership policies or debates on homeownership
policies (e.g. regarding the ‘fairness’ of mortgage interest-deduction, or the frustration of tenants who ‘miss
out’ on the gains created through house price inflation) may influence both owners’ and tenants’ voting
behavior and preferences. Taken together, interests related to homeownership cannot provide an
explanation for the presumed higher propensity of homeowners to vote in the first place. We will thus turn
to other explanations in this paper.
Second, we take account of methodological issues with regard to the selection into homeownership.
Much of the older research is criticized for not controlling for important correlates of homeownership, like
income or occupational class, or for only researching low-income homeowners (i.e.Engelhardt et al., 2010;
Haurin, Dietz, & Weinberg, 2003), although others found effects to hold controlling for endogeneity and
selection (Aaronson, 2000). We will therefore control for the most important ‘common causes’ of
homeownership and electoral participation (gender, age, marital status, income, education, occupational
class and urban/rural environment). These controls also take care of composition effects, which arise from
the fact that the groups of homeowners and tenants may have different characteristics in different countries.
Composition effects are related to the selection of people into homeownership. Housing regimes – defined
as the ‘social, political and economic organization of the provision, allocation and consumption of housing’
(Kemeny, 1981, p. 13) – differ between countries. Housing regimes influence the costs and benefits of
different tenures and influence which people can enter homeownership, and why they do so. We hence
expect that housing regime-differences with regard to the impact of owning versus renting on political
participation can be (partly) explained by the selection of different ‘types’ of people into homeownership.
Third, apart from the methodological issue of selection into homeownership, housing regimes also
determine one of the main substantive explanations for the positive effect of homeownership on electoral
participation: length of residence. We fill this gap by formulating and testing hypotheses with regard to the
impact of housing regimes on differences between groups of owners and tenants with regard to length of
residence. Unfortunately, there are no comparative data sources in which information on tenure, political
participation and length of residence as explanatory mechanisms are all included at the same time. To this
end, we combine data from various sources to approximate this theoretical mechanism.
To summarize, our main research question reads as follows: do homeowners and tenants differ in
their electoral participation across different housing regimes, and to which extent can these housing regime
differences be explained by a) selection into homeownership and b) differences between owners and tenants
in terms of length of residence. The focus in this paper is on national electoral participation, i.e. to vote or
not to vote in national elections. We use data from the second wave of the European Social Survey (Jowell
& The Central Co-ordinating Team, 2005) and the 2004 General Social Survey (Davis & Smith, 2004).
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The paper is structured as follows. In the following section, we elaborate on the literature with
regard to the social mechanisms: social characteristics, political trust and length of residence, linking
homeownership to political participation. Next, we formulate hypotheses with regard to housing regimedifferences in the impact of homeownership on electoral participation, and how these relate to a) selection
into homeownership (including political trust) and b) length of residence-differences between owners and
tenants across housing regimes. We then describe the data and methods, present the results and end with a
conclusion and discussion.
Homeownership and electoral participation: social mechanisms
From a rational-choice or self-interest perspective we would not expect homeowners and tenants to have a
different turnout. Assuming that political parties will tailor their programs to different parts of the electorate,
both owners and tenants would find a party that suits their needs and interests. This is especially the case
when tenants are prospective homebuyers and owners are prospective tenants. We thus need to explore
other social mechanisms that foster electoral participation of homeowners more than tenants. In the
literature, three linking mechanisms are discussed: social status, political trust and length of residence.
In most countries in our study homeownership is something to aspire, e.g. the American dream of
housing, which is stimulated by the government (Ronald, 2008). Owned homes are furthermore often larger,
of better quality and situated in better neighborhoods. People can hence derive social status from this tenure.
When homeownership communicates social status and when homeowners are supposed to be ‘good’ or
‘better’ citizens, this may induce electoral participation through social pressure and social control (Rohe &
Stegman, 1994). This is in line with group-based models of voting: people vote because they are mobilized
by leaders to serve the groups’ interests or because they believe that they are morally obliged to vote
(Feddersen, 2004).
The second explanation is political trust. As already mentioned in the introduction, homeownership
has been associated with economic and social benefits at the societal, neighborhood and individual level.
For instance, homeownership is believed to increase neighborhood quality and social trust, and at the
country level it has been used and communicated as a tool to stabilize the economy (Green & White, 1997).
These benefits, achieved through homeownership could lead to more satisfaction with the government and
political trust which would enhance electoral participation. However, it is also possible that political trust
is a driver of both homeownership and electoral participation. People buy homes and vote more often when
they have more confidence in the political and economic system.
The third explanation is length of residence. Homeowners are on average more residentially stable
than tenants and this has beneficial side-effects. Residential stability gives the opportunity to build social
contacts in the neighborhood and it increases civic engagement, while moving, according to Putnam’s
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(1995) re-potting hypothesis, would decrease civic engagement. Residentially stable citizens can also enjoy
neighborhood and housing improvements more because of their longer length of residence (Engelhardt et
al., 2010). Especially in the case of the US, the rooting of households within communities through
homeownership can help individuals overcome institutional barriers and develop social networks that foster
participation in the formal political process (McCabe, 2013). This is also the case in Europe where voters
do not need to register, but where one has to get informed on the party programs of between five and more
than a dozen parties for each election. Social contacts and social organizations can help in this process.
However, it might also be the case that homeownership does not induce socially desirable behavior. If
homeownership leads to a ‘sociological mosaic’ in which people flee the cities into suburbia, living their
lives segregated by education, income, class and race (Putnam, 2001) this might not enhance social or
democratic behavior.
From the above literature review, it appears that social status, political trust and length of residence
would reinforce democratic citizenship which boosts political behavior – such as voting – at the local level.
We argue that it may also influence political behavior at the national level for three reasons. First, housing
policy, which influences the costs and benefits of the different tenures, is made at the national level. For
example, regulations on rent benefits, mortgage interest deduction and property taxation are national
regulation. Secondly, voting is a habitual act. From research we know that once people have voted three
times in a row they are likely to continue to vote for the rest of their lives (Plutzer, 2002). This may lead to
a spill-over effect: when people vote in local elections they learn the skills to vote in national elections.
Thirdly, politicians taking part in national elections are often chosen by a local electorate. This effect is
considerable in countries which have many geographical electoral units. France, for instance, has 577
electoral districts, all with their own member of parliament (Gallagher, Laver, & Mair, 2006). Finally,
national turnout is, on average, higher than local turnout, giving strength to the idea to research the
possibility of a national electoral tenure gap.
In the introduction, we already pointed out that research into the political effects of homeownership
has been plagued by a lack of appropriate statistical control for variables which may lead to both a higher
probability of being a homeowner, and higher levels of political participation. Therefore, we expect part of
the homeownership effect to be explained through selection. Although we do not have a good measure for
(increased) social status of homeowners in our data, we also include political trust and length of residence
in our models, which both are assumed to increase turnout of homeowners compared to tenants. This leads
us to our first general hypotheses at the micro-level:
Hypothesis 1: homeowners have a higher propensity to vote in national elections than tenants
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Hypothesis 1a: the higher propensity of homeowners to vote in national elections compared with tenants is
partly caused by general differences in social characteristics, i.e. age, education and income
Hypothesis 1b: the higher propensity of homeowners to vote in national elections compared with tenants is
partly mediated by or caused by higher levels of political trust of homeowners
Hypothesis 1c: the higher propensity of homeowners to vote in national elections compared with tenants is
partly mediated by the generally longer length of residence of homeowners across countries
How housing regimes influence selection into homeownership, length of residence and voting
Housing regimes – defined as systems of housing provision, allocation and consumption (Kemeny, 1981)
– differ across countries and have changed much in recent decades. Housing finance has been liberalized
and part of the social housing stock in several countries has been sold to (sitting) tenants, as part of a
neoliberal policy orientation in, for example, the United Kingdom (UK) and as part of the privatization and
restitution policy following the transformation from a planned to a market economy in post-socialist
countries, such as Slovenia. Housing regimes have at least two effects: selection of citizens into tenures and
the residential stability of owners versus tenants, both of which differ between housing regimes.
The first impact of housing regimes refers to selection. Housing regimes influence the costs and
benefits of different tenures, making homeownership and the (social) rental sector more or less attractive
for certain groups of citizens. Governments can, for example, broaden or narrow the conditions of entrance
in the social rental sector. Most often, governments promote one tenure at the expense of others (Kemeny,
1981; Ronald, 2008). For example, mortgage interest deduction (MID) makes homeownership a much more
attractive tenure compared to the (private) rental market.
A second impact of housing regimes arises from differences in the residential stability of owners
versus renters. It has been found consistently that homeowners are more residentially stable than tenants
(i.e. McCabe, 2013). Reasons mentioned are: financial investment in the house and neighborhood,
connection to the local job market and the economic system and higher costs of moving for homeowners.
However, tenants might be more inclined to stay put when there is more security of tenure, e.g. public
housing can be entered on a low-income, but people do not move out when they have a higher income
because of security of tenure and/or lacking attractive options (OECD, 2011). This means that security of
tenure in combination with high-quality, but relatively cheap (social) housing makes tenants also invested
in their house and neighborhood, which in turn increases their moving costs. Housing regimes thus result
in different lengths of residence for owners (higher) compared with tenants (lower), through regime
differences in i.e. transaction costs and tenure (in)security. This gap in length of residence between
homeowners and tenants, which systematically differs between countries, can mediate the impact of
housing regimes on voting. In other words, the different tenure gap in electoral participation between
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housing regimes can be (partly) explained with length of residence-differences between owners and tenants
across countries. In the next section, we further elaborate on four distinguished housing regimes, and on
their impact on the tenure gap in voting though selection and length of residence-effects.
Four housing regimes and two hypotheses
While homeownership has become the majority tenure in most European countries, it developed in different
times and for different reasons. We distinguish between four housing regimes: market-based
homeownership, family-based homeownership, post-socialist homeownership and the ‘rent & ownregime’. For each regime we will lay out our expectations with regard to the tenure gap in voting and argue
how this gap has (or has not) come about through selection and length of residence-effects which vary
systematically between housing regimes.
The market-based homeownership regime
The market-based housing regime consists of France, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, the UK and the US. These
countries have an active homeownership policy, reflecting an ideological preference for the provision of
state-supported mortgaged-based homeownership (Ronald, 2008). Policy measures to promote
homeownership were: mortgage interest deduction, right-to-buy of council housing, capital gains tax
exemptions and increased loan-to-value ratios (LTV). The government is mostly focused on
homeownership as the dominant tenure, creating a marginalized social housing sector combined with a lessregulated private rental sector (a so-called ‘dual rental market’). The young and households with limited
income are more often found in the rental sector. However, (social) renting is marginalized, leaving poorer
tenants with the worst-quality houses in the least popular neighbourhoods. The groups that are selected into
homeownership are also the groups that are expected to vote more often in elections (higher incomes, higher
education, older age groups).We thus expect the effect of selection to be large.
Renting is a transitional state for the young and for those who fall out of homeownership. Renting
is a permanent tenure for the poorest households, who however have to deal with higher levels of tenure
insecurity than in other regimes. Overall, we expect people to stay longer in homeownership and shorter in
the rental sector, resulting in a larger difference in length of residence between owners and tenants in the
market-based regime. However, market-based homeownership countries often have dynamic housing
markets (van der Heijden, Dol, & Oxley, 2011), which means that people move often in their housing career
(moving up and down the housing ladder), resulting in a shorter length of residence for homeowners
compared to homeowners in more static housing markets. Combining effects of selection into
homeownership and length of residence-differences between owners and tenants, we, however, expect the
tenure gap to be largest in this regime.
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The family-based homeownership regime
The family-based homeownership regime contains Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Homeownership in
these countries is outright and mainly provided by the family through self-provision, pooling
intergenerational family resources to bridge the gap between needs and welfare state provision (Allen et
al., 2004). Although the mortgage market is developing in these countries, the LTV is in general moderate,
creating the need for families to provide financial help to bridge the mortgage gap. Although the
government hardly intervenes in the homeownership market, the housing trajectory is strongly focused on
homeownership.
The social rental sector is very small, and most people on a lower income live in a family-owned
house (Allen et al., 2004). The private rental sector, which is about 20% of the tenure stock, consists, on
average, of lower-quality housing. People in the rental sector are young households that did not make the
transition into homeownership yet. Compared to the market-based regime, we expect that tenants consist
to a larger extent out of young people (who are more politically active than the poor) and to a smaller extent
out of poor people (who are less politically active). The impact of the housing regime on the tenure gap in
voting is thus less strongly related to selection.
Since the rental sector is mostly a transitional sector for the young we expect the average length of
residence to be short. Furthermore, the family-based regime has a static housing system; people are unlikely
to move but rather modify their existing home (van der Heijden et al., 2011). This means that the length of
residence-effect in this regime is expected to be larger than in the market-based regime, suggesting a
stronger impact of the housing regime on the tenure gap.
The rent & own-regime
Our third regime is the ‘rent & own-regime’, which is characterized by unitary rental markets and consists
of: Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. A unitary rental
market consists of, alongside a strongly regulated private rental market, a historically large social rental
sector which was accessible for most inhabitants, which means there are no of few income requirements.
In the rent & own-regime this came alongside with varying degrees of mortgage-interest deduction
supporting homeowners. The lower income groups have access to better quality rental houses and the
middle income groups can choose between homeownership and public or private renting. There are
government benefits for both tenures in the rent & own-regime. In general, the higher income groups are
in homeownership and the lower income groups are predominantly in the rental sector, while the middle
class is divided amongst these two tenures. We therefore expect the selection-effect to be small.
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Because the social rental sector is not marginalized, offers high-quality housing and tenure security,
people stay longer in the rental sector than in other regimes. In a unitary rental market, people move in and
out of the different tenures based on their life course stage. Very broadly, when in college people rent, they
enter home-ownership before family formation and rent again in old age. This goes alongside corresponding
urban-rural movements. Furthermore, these are, in general, dynamic housing markets with high turnover
rates. We would therefore expect shorter lengths of residence of owners compared to the family-based
regime. Combined, the presence of a unitary rental market and high turnover rates should have as a
consequence that length of residence of owners and tenants is more similar in these countries. Compared
to the market-based regime, we hence expect the tenure gap in voting to be smaller.
The Czech Republic can be classified as a unitary rental market because of its large social rental
sector, and the country also has a different homeownership policy than the other Eastern- European
countries in our sample (see next section). For example, the Czech Republic has the same Bausparen system
as Germany which is also classified as ‘rent & own’ (Donner, 2006; Lux, 2001).
The post-socialist homeownership regime
The post-socialist homeownership regime encompasses Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia. In the post-socialist
regime, homeownership rates are extremely high and mostly non-mortgaged, like in the family-based
regime. This is the outcome of privatization, the sale of public rented property to tenants below market
prices and the restitution of property to pre-communist owners. Although homeownership rates are high,
houses were often unfit and in a bad condition (Lux, Sunega, & Katrňák, 2013; Mandic & Clapham, 1996).
This means that there is hardly any difference in the quality or benefits normally associated with
homeownership compared to renting. We therefore expect the tenure gap in voting arising from the
selection into homeownership to be small or non-existent in this regime.
Furthermore, we expect length of residence to be quite equal, because there is nearly now possibility
to change housing within or between the rental sector and owner-occupation in 2004, so people are forced
to stay put. In Table 1, we present the four regimes, their countries and the housing market characteristics
of these countries.
Hypothesis 2: the tenure gap in electoral participation is largest in the market-based regime, followed by
the family regime, while a smaller gap is expected in the rent & own-regime and no effect is expected in
the post-socialist regime
Hypothesis 3: the tenure gap differences in electoral participation between housing regimes can be (partly)
explained by the systematic differences in length of residence between homeowners and tenants, and by the
different selection into homeownership
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[Table 1 about here]
Data and methods
To analyze our research question we use data for 18 European countries1 from the 2004 European Social
Survey (Jowell & The Central Co-ordinating Team, 2005) and the 2004 General Social Survey for the US.
We use post-stratification weights to correct for sampling, non-response and design.
Variables
The question on voting posed in ESS was: “Some people don’t vote nowadays for one reason or another,
did you vote in the last [country] national election in [month/year]?” For the US the question was: “In 2000,
you remember that Gore ran for President on the Democratic ticket against Bush for the Republicans. Do
you remember for sure whether or not you voted in that election?” We recoded the variable as yes (1) and
no (0) and excluded those not eligible to vote.
We coded if any member of the household owned the dwelling (yes/no). Unfortunately we do not know if
people are in the public or private rental sector or live rent free if the home is not owner-occupied. This
limits our understanding of renting citizens or of owners when they are not living in the owned house, but
rent somewhere else as their main residence. Age is calculated from the year of birth and centered on the
grand mean. Gender is recoded into female. Education is measured as: (1) less than lower-secondary/less
than high school, (2) lower-secondary complete, (3) post-secondary/tertiary, bachelor, master and (4)
education missing. Each respondent was asked to indicate in which income class their household income
falls. Income is then measured as the relative household income percentile that a respondent belongs to in
his/her country based on the class means of the income variable. Marital status is measured with four
dummies; ‘married or living together’; ‘single’; ‘divorced’ and ‘widowed’. Urban/rural living is also
measured with four dummies: ‘big city’, ‘suburbs’, ‘small city’ and ‘rural area’. Occupational status was
measured as ISEI and transformed from ISCO88. ISEI gives an indication of the cultural and economic
resources that are typical for a certain occupation, and it incorporates how education translates into earnings
(Ganzeboom & Treiman, 2014). For those who did not have a valid ISCO-score, because they were
housewives, long-time unemployed, students or because they did not answer the question, the mean-ISCO
score was imputed and a dummy variable created. This dummy controls for the imputation of occupational
status. Political trust is operationalized as the mean score on the partisan trust items in the survey (ESS:
politicians, parties and parliament, GSS: congress and executive branch of the federal government)
(Rothstein & Stolle, 2008), because only trust in partisan institutions would enhance turnout.
Length of residence was not available in the 2004 waves of ESS and GSS. Therefore we used
other data sources and merged the outcome with our original dataset. Length of residence was when possible
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calculated from EU-SILC 2005, although we used other years for Norway (2006) and Switzerland (2011).
We first made the samples comparable to the ESS and GSS by only including people 18 years and over.
Then we randomly selected one person per household for our calculations. We measure the length of
residence based on the date of purchase of the house or the date of installment of the contract. We calculate
the average length of residence of groups of citizens based on four age groups (18-35, 36-50, 51-65, 65+),
gender, married or not, education (low, middle, high) and tenure (homeowner, tenant). We imputed the
length of residence based on these groupings for each respondent in our dataset. We used the same
procedure for the US with the 2002 General Social Survey and the 2006 wave of the Dutch LISS panel.
The descriptives of the variables used can be found in Table 2.
[Table 2 about here]
Method
Mood (2010) showed that logits or odds ratios cannot be used as effect measures because they also reflect
the unobserved heterogeneity in the model. Because the unobserved heterogeneity can differ between
models or groups, these effects cannot be compared across models based on identical samples. To test
mediation and interaction models it is thus better to use a different approach. In this case we use linear
probability models (LPM), which yield unbiased and consistent estimates of a variable’s average effect on
the chance that the event occurs. The b-coefficients in LPM can be read as average marginal effects on the
likelihood of voting (Matter & Stutzer, 2014). We use a multilevel linear probability model to account for
the clustering of individuals in countries and to include the possibility of a random slope of homeownership,
since we expect the effect of homeownership to vary across countries (Snijders & Bosker, 1999). We also
performed the same analysis with country fixed-effects and conclude that our results are robust 2.
Results
Our most general micro-level hypothesis predicted a positive effect of homeownership. Homeowners are
expected to have a higher propensity to vote in national elections compared to tenants because they have a
higher social status, have more political trust and are more residentially stable. We do not have a measure
for social status; however, we will test for length of residence and political trust in the multi-level models.
Table 3 shows the turnout of homeowners and tenants in all countries separately, the tenure gap in electoral
participation as well as the bivariate and controlled effect of homeownership on voting. We control for age,
gender, marital status, education, income, urban/rural status, occupational status and political trust.
In the market-based regime we find a significant effect in France, Ireland, Norway, the UK and the
US, which was expected based upon their homeownership policy. For example, in the UK the probability
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of a homeowner to vote in national elections increases with 0.10 or is 10 percentage points higher than for
tenants. We, however, do not find a significant effect in Iceland. In the family-based regime, there are two
countries with a significant effect (Greece and Spain), while the other countries show no effect after we
control for selection and political trust. A possible explanation for this difference is that house prices (and
mortgage debt) increased much more in Spain and Greece between 2001 and 2004 than in Italy and Portugal
(EMF, 2009), making homeownership a possible driver of electoral participation through capital gains. The
difference between the controlled and uncontrolled effects in Greece and Spain are very small, indicating
that it is not selection that drives the tenure gap. In the ‘rent & own’ regime, we find significant and
consistent effects, which are on average half of the effect in the market regime. The effect is largest in
Switzerland (0.08) and is not significant in the Netherlands. The post-socialist regime shows no effect of
homeownership on voting, which is also in line with our expectations.
Since we find a significant effect in most countries, after controlling for selection, we can confirm
hypothesis 1 on the homeownership effect on turnout. There exists a tenure gap in electoral participation.
We can also conclude that about half of the tenure gap arises from selection, although such a process is
more prominent in the market regime and rent & own-regime than in the family-based regime.
[Tables 3 and 4 about here]
Table 4 tests the other three micro-level homeownership hypotheses: can the tenure gap in voting be
explained by selection, length of residence, political trust or a combination of these? We show the multilevel linear probability models in Table 4.
Hypothesis 1a predicted that the tenure gap could be partly explained through general differences
in social characteristics. We can confirm this hypothesis, because the homeownership effect reduces from
0.13 in model 1 (M1) to 0.08 in model 2a (M2a) and this reduction is significant (χ²=19.01, p=0.000).
Hypothesis 1b predicted the tenure gap to be partially mediated or caused by higher levels of political trust
of homeowners; we test this hypothesis in model 2b (M2b). Although the effect of political trust is
significant, the homeownership-effect does not change. We thus have to reject hypotheses 1b, political trust
does not explain the tenure gap. Hypothesis 1c stated that the tenure gap could be explained with the
generally longer mean group length of residence of homeowners across countries. When including length
of residence in our models, the tenure gap decreases from 0.13 (model 1) to 0.10 (model 2c), and this
reduction is significant (χ²=4.76, p=0.029). However, when we control for selection in model 4, the effect
of length of residence on voting becomes non-significant and the reduction of the tenure gap is absorbed
by the selection effect. This indicates that, although homeowners do tend to be more residentially stable,
the presumed beneficial effects of a longer length of residence may really be due to other social
14
characteristics of homeowners, which lead to higher political participation compared to tenants. This is a
novel finding, and calls into question the presumed higher sociability and participation in civil society
attributed to homeownership. We thus have to reject hypothesis 1c: although the tenure gap does decrease
when we control for length of residence, it is not an additional explanation above the differing socioeconomic characteristics of homeowners and tenants. However, we have to keep in mind that our measure
of length of residence is an approximation and not the actual length of residence. A better measurement
could have resulted in a more significant effect, independent from other characteristics.
The homeownership effect in model 1 (0.13) becomes 38% smaller (0.08) in model 5 in which we
control for all three mechanisms (selection, political trust and length of residence). Although this is a
significant reduction (χ²=19.01, p=0.000), the tenure gap is still positive and significant (b=0.08, p=0.000).
This (again), confirms the first general hypothesis that homeownership has a positive effect on electoral
participation.
[Figure 1]
Our second hypothesis predicted the tenure gap in electoral participation to be largest in the market-based
regime, followed by the family-based regime, the rent & own-regime and the post-socialist regime, for
which we predicted no effect. We summarized the predicted probabilities of homeowners and tenants,
reflecting the (uncontrolled) tenure gap, in Figure 1. The gap is indeed largest in the market-based regime
(b=0.21, p=0.00), followed by the family-based regime (b=0.13, p=0.00), and the rent & own-regime
(b=0.11, p=0.00), and it is smallest in the post-socialist regime (b=0.003, p=0.01). The family regime and
rent & own-regime are not significantly different in their tenure gap, while the other regimes differ
significantly from each other. Although the effect is very small in the post-socialist regime, and was nonsignificant for the three countries separately, combined there is enough power to reach significance,
although in substantive terms, the difference is hardly relevant. This confirms our second hypotheses.
Our third hypothesis reads: the tenure gap differences in electoral participation between housing
regimes can be (partly) explained by systematic differences in length of residence between homeowners
and tenants, and by different selection into homeownership. We test this in models 3 to 5 (in Table 5). We
do not discuss the main effect of our housing regimes-variable on voting, as this effect probably proxies the
impact of other country-level determinants of voting (e.g. electoral system, welfare regime). In line with
our hypotheses, we focus on the interaction between the housing regimes-variable, and the tenure gap in
voting. At the bottom of Table 5, the tenure gap for each housing regime is shown, controlled for the
variables in the model. If the number is bold, the tenure gap is significantly different from zero, while the
stars indicate whether the tenure gap significantly differs from the gap in model 2. Model 3 shows that the
15
tenure gaps all become smaller when controlled for selection. The largest decreases are in the market-based
regime and in the rent & own-regime, while the tenure gap in the post-socialist regime becomes nonsignificant. Also, the difference in the tenure gap between the family-based regime and the market-based
regime disappears when we control for selection into homeownership. These finding are in line with our
predictions, since we predicted the tenure gap to be (partly) explained by selection into homeownership,
although we expected the selection-effect to be less strong in the rent & own-regime.
Although the effect of length of residence is significant in model 4 (those that stay longer in the
same house have a higher propensity to vote), it disappears and adds no extra explanatory power when we
control for selection in model 5. Moreover, length of residence does not significantly decrease the tenure
gap compared to the uncontrolled model for each housing regime. Model 5 shows the combined effect of
length of residence and selection. It shows that the selection into homeownership accounts for differences
in length of residence between homeowners and tenants. We can therefore only partly confirm hypothesis
2.
After controlling for selection and length of residence, differences between housing regimes have
diminished considerably. The tenure gap in voting became non-significant in the post-socialist regime and
the differences between the market-regime and the family-regime have disappeared. However, the tenure
gap – be it of a smaller size – still remains in the market-based, family-based and rent & own regime which
indicates that there are other explanations necessary in order to explain the higher propensity to vote of
homeowners compared to tenants.
Conclusion and discussion
While policy makers and politicians in Europe and the US use ‘better’ citizenship as an argument to increase
homeownership, we researched if this effect actually exists. We use pre-crisis data on homeownership,
voter turnout and length of residence in 18 European countries and the US to answer our research question:
do homeowners and tenants differ in their electoral participation across different housing regimes, and to
which extent can these housing regime differences be explained by a) selection into homeownership and b)
differences between owners and tenants in terms of length of residence.
Homeowners and tenants do differ in their turnout in national elections, and this effect varies
considerably across countries and housing regimes. The effect is largest in the market-based regime, in
which mortgaged homeownership is the standard and where there are little options in the (social) rental
market, which pushes people into homeownership. The effect is smaller in the family-based regime, and
rent & own-regime, which do not significantly differ from each other. There is a very small tenure gap in
the post-socialist regime. Although part of the tenure gap was significantly reduced when controlling for
16
selection into homeownership, the tenure gap remained significant in most countries and differed between
countries and housing regimes.
At the micro-level, we first tested if the tenure gap in national electoral participation could be
explained with selection, political trust and length of residence. We found that the tenure gap could partly
be explained by selection, however, political trust did not change the tenure gap and length of residence
only decreased the tenure gap when not controlled for selection, in other words, the differences in (our
measure of) length of residence are absorbed by selection. This indicates that, although homeowners do
tend to be more residentially stable, the presumed beneficial effects of a longer length of residence may
really be due to other social characteristics of homeowners, which lead to higher political participation
compared to tenants. It is thus possible that people with more ‘stable’ characteristics, e.g. a higher income
and a higher education, tend to become homeowners but also tend to be more residentially stable in the first
place, whether they own or rent. This is a novel finding, and calls into question the presumed higher
sociability and participation in civil society of homeowners resulting from a firmer rooting in their local
communities. After all, homeownership is often more suburban and of a more privatized, ‘inward-focused’
nature compared to renting (Kemeny, 1981; Putnam, 2001). Although our measure of length of residence
was not perfect, as we will elaborate upon later, we do find a length of residence-effect which disappears
after we control for selection. A better measurement could however have resulted in a stronger effect, which
could have been independent of other social characteristics.
Second, we tested macro-level hypotheses on the tenure gap in voting by housing regimes. We
argued that housing regimes, which influence the costs and benefits of the different tenures, select people
and in this case an electorate into different tenures and in different length of residences. We found that the
effect as described above could only partly be explained with selection. And even though length of
residence reduced the tenure gap, this effect did not hold when controlled for selection. Although others
(DiPasquale & Glaeser, 1999; McCabe, 2013) found that length of residence explained a quarter till half of
the homeownership-effect in the US and Germany, we did not find this to hold for nineteen countries
combined. There are, at least, two possible explanations. Firstly, there is no ‘independent’ length of
residence-effect. As we use different controls for selection into homeownership, the length of residenceeffect found in earlier studies is now explained. Secondly, our operationalization of length of residence was
not appropriate enough because we used other data sources to impute a proxy of length of residence. Our
length of residence-measurement was significant without controlling for selection. This indicates that there
is a length of residence-effect, and it might have been stronger if we had a direct measure instead of a
(crude) indirect measure.
We were able to explain the tenure gap in the post-socialist regime completely, and in the familybased regime, the market-based regime and the rent & own-regime for about a quarter up to a half. This
17
means that there may be other explanations for the tenure gap-differences in electoral participation,
although again it is possible that a more accurate measure of length of residence would have resulted in a
stronger reduction of the tenure gap in voting across housing regimes. Part of the differences between
countries might be attributed to differences in municipal registration for voting, which may somehow covary with the housing regime. When tenants move more often than homeowners, and they move before
their voting pass arrives, this would reduce electoral participation of tenants. Although this is a possibility,
other factors than the national electoral system in different housing regimes influence our outcomes,
because we find the same effects in the country-fixed effects models in which the country dummies ‘control’
for all unobserved heterogeneity between countries, like aspects of the electoral system (Franklin, 2004).
Also, the fact that we could hardly explain the tenure gap in the family-based regime, where Spain and
Greece had the largest tenure gap in voting, indicates that other mechanisms may be at work or that we are
lacking other appropriate controls. Our selection variables are limited as well as our measure of length of
residence, hence we cannot rule out that the tenure gap would completely disappear if we would have
perfect measurements. Another limitation of this research is causality. We cannot be sure about causality
between homeownership and turnout, because we do not have longitudinal data. It is possible that people
who are interested in politics and turn out in elections are more likely to buy a house.
The policy implication from this research is that the expected (positive) homeownership-effect on
voting in national elections is present, but that a large part of this effect is caused by selection into
homeownership. As better measurements potentially would have allowed for a ‘complete’ explanation of
the tenure gap, and of housing regime-differences in the tenure gap, policy-makers should be more cautious
when promoting homeownership based on the argument that it turns people into ‘better citizens’
(DiPasquale & Glaeser, 1999).
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the European Research Council [ERC Starting Grant HOWCOME, Grant
Agreement No. 283615; PI: C. Dewilde], www.tilburguniversity.edu/howcome. We want to thank
participants of the Housing Market Dynamics workshop of ENHR for their useful feedback on an earlier
version.
18
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21
Figure 1: the tenure gap
The tenure gap controlled (left) and uncontrolled (right)
0,9
Predicted Probability of voting
0,8
0,7
0,6
Uncontrolled Tenant
0,5
Uncontrolled Homeowner
0,4
Controlled Tenant
0,3
Controlled Homeowner
0,2
0,1
0
Market regime
Family regime
Rent & own regime
Post-socialist regime
22
Table 1 Overview of the housing regimes and descriptives of country indicators of housing (policy)
Tenure distribution
HO%
MID
Regimes
Support for home-ownership
Mortgaged Outright
Mortgage
HO
HO
Debt ratio
HO% change
(1980-2008)
Support for the rental sector
Social
Dualist
Housing
rental %
/Unitary Benefits as
% of GDP
17.0
Dualist
0.8
8.7
Dualist
0.4
8.3
Dualist
0.2
6.2
Dualist
0.2
18.0
Dualist
1.4
3.2
Dualist
0.3
Marketbased
Regime
France
Ireland
Iceland
Norway
UK
US
57
79
82
77
69
69
limited
limited
no
full
no
full
42
59
67
66
67
58
33
32
27
26
23
29
26.0
51.7
70.8
53.3
71.2
67.2
10
3
-6
10
11
4
Familybased
Regime
Greece
Italy
Portugal
Spain
74
73
75
82
limited
low
low
limited
14
14
48
35
64
63
39
53
18.3
14.8
49.3
45.7
4
10
24
12
0.0
5.3
3.3
2.0
Dualist
Dualist
Dualist
Dualist
0.3
0.0
0.0
0.2
PostSocialist
Regime
Poland
Slovakia
Slovenia
75
85
84
low
no
low
7
15
2
70
72
82
4.7
6.5
2.9
51
43
23
10.0
2.6
6.0
Dualist
Dualist
Dualist
0.1
0.0
0.1
Rent &
Own
Regime
Austria
Czech Republic
Germany
Netherlands
Sweden
Switzerland
51
64
45
56
55
34
low
limited
no
full
limited
full
41
34
36
88
65
85
30
42
29
7
19
5
20.7
4.2
52.3
88.2
57.0
86.4
4
13
13
16
-2
11
23.0
17.0
4.6
32.0
18.0
5.8
Unitary
Unitary
Unitary
Unitary
Unitary
Unitary
0.1
0.1
0.4
0.3
0.5
0.1
23
Table 2. Descriptives of individual variables (N=31,176)
Min
Electoral participation
0
Homeowner
0
Female
0
Age (centered)
-30.87
Tenure length (semi-micro) (centered)
-17.37
Education
Less than lower secondary
0
Secondary and non-tertiary
0
Tertiary complete
0
Education missing
0
Marital status
Single
0
Married
0
Divorced
0
Widowed
0
Occupational status (ISEI)
0
ISEI missing
0
Income (percentile per country)
0
Income missing
0
Urban/rural
Country side
0
Big city
0
Suburbs of a big city
0
Small city
0
Source: ESS (2004) and GSS (2004), own computations
Max
1
1
1
53.13
56.63
Mean
0.77
0.72
0.54
0.00
0.00
1
1
1
1
0.16
0.62
0.21
0.01
1
1
1
1
0.90
1
1
1
0.20
0.65
0.06
0.09
0.42
0.11
0.39
0.23
1
1
1
1
0.36
0.18
0.13
0.33
SD
17.27
9.18
0.15
24
Table 3. Linear Probability Models of home-ownership on electoral participation
Electoral participation %
Homeowner Tenant
∆
Market based regime
France
82
64
18
Ireland
85
62
23
Iceland
94
90
4
Norway
89
72
17
UK
76
56
20
US
76
43
33
Electoral participation
B
SE
P
0.10 0.03
0.000
0.11 0.02
0.000
0.01 0.04
0.888
0.07 0.02
0.005
0.10 0.02
0.000
0.11 0.04
0.006
Family-based regime
Greece
Italy
Portugal
Spain
94
89
73
85
77
82
66
69
17
7
7
16
0.16
0.03
0.02
0.13
0.02
0.02
0.03
0.03
0.000
0.165
0.594
0.000
Rent & own regime
Austria
Czech Republic
Germany
Netherlands
Sweden
Switzerland
84
60
87
85
91
75
73
50
76
75
86
59
11
10
11
10
5
16
0.05
0.06
0.05
0.03
0.03
0.08
0.02
0.02
0.02
0.02
0.02
0.02
0.011
0.002
0.001
0.201
0.044
0.001
Post-socialist regime
Poland
67
64
3
-0.01 0.03
0.787
Slovakia
76
76
0
-0.04 0.04
0.204
Slovenia
76
71
5
0.01 0.04
0.930
Source: ESS (2004) and GSS (2004), own computations, (bold is p<0.05). Last three columns are controlled for:
age, gender, marital status, education, income, occupational status, political trust and urban/rural living
25
Table 4. Multilevel LPM of electoral participation (N=32,528)
Constant
Homeowner
M0
0.76
M1
0.68
0.13
M2a
0.55
0.08
Political trust
Length of residence (semi-micro)
Selection
Female
Age (centered)
Education (low=ref)
Secondary education
Tertiary complete
Education missing
Marital status (single=ref)
Married
Divorced
Widowed
Occupational status (ISEI)
ISEI missing
Income (percentile per country)
Income missing
Urban/rural (country side=ref)
Big city
Suburbs of a big city
Small city
M2b
0.59
0.13
M2c
0.70
0.10
0.02
M3
0.47
0.08
M4
0.54
0.08
M5
0.48
0.08
-0.00
0.02
-0.00
0.02
0.01
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.01
0.04
0.09
-0.01
0.04
0.09
-0.01
0.04
0.09
-0.01
0.04
0.09
-0.01
0.05
0.00
-0.04
0.21
-0.06
0.08
0.01
0.06
0.02
-0.03
0.19
-0.06
0.07
0.01
0.05
0.01
-0.04
0.20
-0.06
0.07
0.01
0.05
0.01
-0.03
0.19
-0.06
0.07
0.01
-0.04
-0.01
-0.01
-0.04
-0.01
-0.01
-0.04
-0.01
-0.01
-0.04
-0.01
-0.01
0.007
0.152
-14592
0.009
0.154
-14763
0.007
0.152
-14591
Variance country level
0.009
0.009
0.009
0.006
Variance Individual level
0.167
0.164
0.154
0.161
-2loglikelihood
-15998 -15716 -14762 -15498
Source: ESS (2004) and GSS (2004), own computations, (bold is p<0.05)
0.010
0.162
-15597
26
Table 5. Macro model. Multilevel LPM of electoral participation (N=32,528)
M1
M2
M3
M4
M5
Constant
0.48
0.62
0.43
0.66
0.43
Homeowner
0.08
0.21
0.12
0.17
0.13
Selection
Female
Age (centered)
Education (low=ref)
Secondary education
Tertiary complete
Education missing
Marital status (single=ref)
Married
Divorced
Widowed
Occupational status (ISEI)
ISEI missing
Income (percentile per country)
Income missing
Urban/rural (country side=ref)
Big city
Suburbs of a big city
Small city
Political trust
Length of residence (semi-micro)
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.01
0.00
0.01
0.04
0.08
-0.01
0.04
0.09
-0.01
0.04
0.09
-0.01
0.05
0.01
-0.04
0.20
-0.06
0.07
0.01
0.05
0.02
-0.03
0.19
-0.07
0.07
0.01
0.05
0.01
-0.04
0.19
-0.06
0.07
0.01
-0.04
-0.01
-0.01
0.02
-0.00
-0.04
-0.01
-0.01
0.02
0.01
-0.04
-0.01
-0.01
0.02
-0.00
Housing regime (market=ref)
Family regime
Rent & own regime
Post-socialist regime
Family regime * homeowner
Rent & Own regime * homeowner
Post-socialist regime * homeowner
Variance country level
Variance Individual level
Variance homeowner
-2loglikelihood
0.009
0.152
0.003
-14565
0.11
0.08
0.07
0.12
0.03
0.07
0.08
0.06
0.03
0.13
0.03
0.08
-0.08
-0.10
-0.18
-0.04
-0.05
-0.12
-0.07
-0.08
-0.15
-0.05
-0.06
-0.13
0.008
0.162
0.001
-15661
0.007
0.152
0.001
-14560
0.009
0.162
0.001
-15554
0.006
0.152
0.001
-14557
Tenure gap market regime
0.21 0.12**
0.17
0.13**
Tenure gap family regime
0.13 0.08*
0.10 0.08
Tenure gap rent & own regime
0.11 0.06**
0.09
0.07**
Tenure gap post-socialist regime
0.03
0.00**
0.01
0.01**
Source: ESS (2004) and GSS (2004), own computations, (bold is p<0.05),
** p<0.05 * p <0.10 significant change in tenure gap compared to the uncontrolled tenure gap
27
Notes
1
We do not use the data of six countries that are available in ESS wave 2 for several reasons. Romania and
Ukraine are excluded because income data are missing completely, Luxembourg is an outlier and not easily
classifiable in the housing regime typology, Finland and Turkey have no length of residence-data and in
Hungary there were only 78 tenants making the sample too skewed for reliable analysis.
2
The country-fixed effects analyses can be obtained from the first author.
28