Policies to promote access to good-quality affordable housing in OECD countries

Many households across OECD countries are overburdened by housing costs. On average nearly 15% of tenants and 10% of mortgage-payers spend over 40% of their disposable income on housing costs in OECD countries. The incidence of housing cost overburden is much higher among low-income households: 39% both for mortgage-payers and private sector tenants. Middle-class households are not immune: on average nearly 9% of mortgaged middle-class homeowners are overburdened by their monthly mortgage payment across OECD countries.

Access to housing and housing quality also remain pressing concerns in many OECD countries. Significant numbers of people are homeless: while statistics are difficult to compare, most OECD countries report that 1 to 8 people in every thousand lack regular access to housing. In addition, many households live in low-quality dwellings: 15% of low-income households live in overcrowded dwellings and 14% do not have access to an indoor flushing toilet. Neighbourhood crime and pollution are also problematic for many households throughout the OECD.

Access to good-quality affordable housing is important for promoting a number of social policy objectives, including poverty reduction, equality of opportunity and social inclusion. The aim of this paper is to start developing OECD data and knowledge on housing policies and the degree to which OECD countries pursue social policy objectives through housing policies. The paper also identifies possible strands of work that can be carried out by the OECD Secretariat to help member countries learn from each other’s experiences.

New data collected through the OECD Questionnaire on Affordable and Social Housing show that promoting access to affordable housing is in fact an important objective of housing policy in many OECD countries. All 26 reporting OECD countries mention improving access to housing among the five most important objectives of housing policy. Among them, 18 countries explicitly refer to improving affordability of housing. OECD countries use a wide and complex set of policy instruments to implement their housing policy but not all of the instruments appear to be coherent with the goal of promoting access to affordable housing for low-income households. 

Publication Date: 
2016
Pages: 
1-82
Volume: 
No. 176
Journal Name: 
OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers
Location: 
Paris, France