Demographic Change and the Intergenerational Persistence in Homeownership in Europe (DECIPHE)

Project outline

The family of origin is crucial to overcome barriers to homeownership for young people. Specifically, parental homeownership increases the chances of offspring's homeownership. Demographic changes bear on this intergenerational persistence, but how the transmission is affected is unclear.  For instance, increasing life expectancies may reduce the resources that can be transferred for homeownership across generations. In contrast, low fertility in the parental generation may reduce the number of siblings competing for these resources. DECIPHE is the first project to comprehensively study whether and how profound demographic changes in Europe impact the intergenerational persistence of homeownership, considering variations across countries, regions, and birth cohorts. 

We apply a comparative research design covering all EU member states. We zoom in on four focus country cases: Germany, Hungary, Spain, and the UK. We will draw on available longitudinal data in combination with newly collected survey data, including survey experiments, and a novel contextual database. Our empirical results will inform a microsimulation model on the demographic conditions of the intergenerational persistence for predicting future scenarios. We will communicate results to diverse target audiences using data visualisation, explainer videos, and discussion fora.