Entryways to homeownership : family strategies and intergenerational transfers in Malta’s housing system

Abstract

Processes of marketisation and financialisation of housing have raised a question over whether Southern European institutional frameworks are being disrupted. By focusing on the case of Malta, this paper argues that, rather than being disrupted, traditionally key institutions, such as the family, are putting up resistance and finding new opportunities in those very same processes. More specifically, this paper shows how the family, as a defining institution in Malta’s (and Southern Europe’s) institutional framework, resorts to offensive and defensive strategies by means of which it promotes entryways to homeownership in the face of rising property prices, thus ensuring social reproduction. This manifests in a multiplicity of strategies, including (i) co-residence, as well as intergenerational transfers such as (ii) property as gift, (iii) financial resources such as gifted cash, intra-family loans, and loan guarantees, and (iv) social and cultural capital, though such strategies are also marked by wealth and income inequality. Individuals thus remain permanent fledglings, tied closely to their family for support in a reciprocity-based relationship that sustains family solidarity. This paper marks a contribution to the growing literature on housing in Malta, so far largely framed in terms of the question of affordability. By proposing the notion of housing systems, this paper seeks to broaden the currently-narrow discussion limited to notions such as ‘housing markets’ and ‘the household’. The notion of housing systems also allows us to move away from ahistorical and non-contextual measures that are themselves products of those very same processes of marketisation and financialisation.