EV SAHİPLİĞİNE GEÇİŞ PROFİLLERİNİN KARŞILAŞTIRILMASI: TÜRKİYE VE HOLLANDA

Entry to home ownership (EHO) is one of the most significant steps that a household takes during household careers (1). It is not only an economic decision of households but also a social and cultural attitude towards housing. It has spatial repercussions within the urban arena as well. In the literature, the process of entry to home ownership has been studied numerous times (Fejitsen and Mulder, 2002; Megbolugbe and Linneman (1993); Clark, Deurloo and Dieleman (1997); Dieleman and Everaers (1994); Mulder and Wagner (1998) etc.) for different countries. In many of them, factors hypothetically affect this process are found similar and may be grouped under four headings as: household status, characteristics of housing stock, socio-cultural factors, housing finance and external factors. EHO process involves additionally, socio-economic and demographic characteristics of countries and ideological and political contexts. Housing is one of the indicative attributes with joint significance in socioeconomic performance for any country. Due to socio- cultural, economical and urbanization processes experienced, policies implemented and their effects in the stock could be wide-ranged. In Turkey, free market processes with almost no intervention ruled under circumstances of rapid urbanization. In the Netherlands, to meet the urgent housing need which arose after Second World War, centralized social housing policies were dominant. The influences of these policies in the stock also varied considerably putting owner occupation and renting in distinct positions in the two countries. Historically, housing policy profiles of Turkey and the Netherlands differ due to the socio-economic processes the countries experienced. The Second World War in the Netherlands, for instance, was severe: a considerable part of the housing stock had been ruined because of war and new housing was desperately needed. To meet the urgent housing need, state intervention was inevitable. Social housing policy was developed and strictly followed until the 1990s, after which significant policy changes came into effect. Turkey was not involved in the Second World War, and housing need was not necessarily a post war problem necessitating state involvement. Rather, housing need became a problem after the 1980s when migration to big cities began due to several processes that Turkey was experiencing. In Turkey, the severe housing need that arose in 1980s, was primarily met by the private developer entrepreneurs and in terms of various processes of private provision in the market (Balamir, 1975; 1982; 1996a). The role of the government has generally been passive, and direct provision was not carried by the central or local governments in Turkey, except after big natural disasters. Historical events and responding policies to the problem of housing varied in Turkey and the Netherlands. Deliberately or not, while the former allowed the development of the stock by private entrepreneurs, the latter chose to devote such powers to its central government. This discrepancy in housing policies in the two countries implied tenure type disparities as well. While in the Netherlands ‘public renting’ appeared to be the solution, ‘owner occupation’ became the distinguishing feature in Turkey. As a result, the two countries represent opposites in terms of their housing policies. These distinct policies resulted in different achievements and problems. In the Netherlands, for instance, extensive social housing policy solved housing shortage and shelter problems. However in the long term, this policy resulted in a stagnant market and put financial burdens on governments (Boelhouwer and van der Heijden 1992). Implementation of subsidy programs further led to household and housing unit mismatches (Dieleman and Van Kempen, 1994). Through development of mortgage law and promotion of owner occupation, the system attempts to give greater choice options to households in recent years. In the Turkish case, on the other hand, the incapacity to intervene in the market provision of housing led to the development of unauthorized housing in various forms including gecekondu. Especially after the 1960s, with massive migration from rural areas to big cities, the problem of housing became a substantial problem (Sarıoğlu, 2007). Housing systems deliberately or not favored one tenure type over the other, and the socio-economic circumstances experienced in countries lead emergence of a variety of modes of access to home ownership which can be grouped as Entry to home ownership profiles (EHOPs). Due to these socioeconomic processes, distinct paths have evolved in home owner trajectories defined in this study as “entry to home ownership profiles” (EHOPs) in the two countries. Any EHOP refers to a particular way of becoming home owner, reflecting the repercussions from the contextual differences in demography, housing systems and housing stocks in the two countries. Throughout the paper, by the term “EHOP”, paths households follow in order to become owner occupiers is meant. These profiles are highly associated with the socio-economic circumstances of households and countries. Therefore, they do differ significantly from country to country. EHOPs defined for a country do not add up to cover positions of all owner occupiers rather reveal the prevalent ways to OO in the both countries. In this paper, profiles formed out of those processes are examined. Before examining the EHOPs of the two countries, however, the two housing systems are evaluated. In doing so, data like population and building census and inflation rates are employed. Additionally, raw data sets of Household Budget Survey (HBS, 2003) for Turkey and Housing Demand Survey (Woningbehoefte Onderzoek-WBO-2002) for the Netherlands are processed. HBS is prepared by State Institute of Statistics (TURKSTAT) and WBO by Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM). The Dutch survey is a more comprehensive data set which provides information on the previous housing and household characteristics of the households. These data sets are fortunately similar to each other in several attributes making a cross country research possible. Primary variables (such as tenure status and household size, age of Hh Head etc) which are included in the analysis are available in both data sets.