Why Own? A Cross-National Typology of Homeownership Motivations in Germany, Hungary, Spain, and the United Kingdom

Sergi Vidal , Centre for Demographic Studies
Patricia Iglesias, Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics (CED-CERCA)

Across Europe, homeownership continues to structure wealth accumulation, intergenerational transfers, residential stability, and local opportunity. While scholarship has documented who owns and the outcomes associated with ownership, the underlying motivations for owning—and how those motivations are patterned across individuals and national contexts—remain theoretically fragmented and empirically under-studied. Existing (quantitative) studies tend to rely on single-item questions or country-specific instruments, limiting cross-national comparability and the ability to distinguish between asset-building and other relevant motivations. This paper addresses that gap, and complement extant qualitative studies on tenure motivations, by constructing a cross-national typology of reasons for homeownership using new harmonized survey data from Germany, Hungary, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

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 Presented in Session 94. Flash Session Data and Methods in Internal Migration and Urbanization