The rise of the working insecure household: understanding how labour insecurity contributes housing insecurity in Australia during a time of restructuring and growth
This thesis investigates the connection between labour and housing insecurity in Australia during the period of restructuring and growth between 1992 and 2007, defined as a market-dominant regime of security. The period is characterised by a steady decline in the rate of unemployment, yet there is substantial evidence to suggest that both labour and housing markets have become more insecure for working households. The central research question posed in this thesis is: How has labour insecurity contributed to housing insecurity during a market-dominant regime of security? In reviewing trends in the labour market I argue that there has been growing insecurity in both household employment and income, resulting from the fragmentation of contract and working-time relations and from growing inequality of earnings. In the housing market I argue that there has been growth in insecurity in both tenure and access emerging from declining affordability and reduced flexibility of households to adjust to sudden changes that threaten their household income. In making connections between labour and housing insecurity I draw on theoretical concepts informed by critical realist ontology, political economy, and Bourdieu’s relational class framework to argue that labour and housing insecurity is contingently and unequally mediated through collective and cumulative household capital. Combining descriptive and statistical modelling of the Australian HILDA survey with in-depth biographical labour and housing histories I examine the contingent conditions when labour insecurity does and does not contribute to housing insecurity. Based on an analysis of these extensive and intensive data I find that housing insecurity for renters and purchasers, as well as delays in moving into home ownership, is more likely to occur amongst households with no permanent employment, reliant on self-employment, or who are unemployed. Housing insecurity amongst moderate to higher income purchasers is more likely to be associated with above-average housing costs and changes within their household than from insecurity in employment. In-depth analysis of labour and housing histories over time reveals how the strategies used to mitigate insecurity are strongly mediated by unequal amounts of collective and cumulative household capital
