News

Homeownership is far less prevalent in Germany than in most other European countries. This Weekly Report examines the extent to which homeownership in Germany depends on the ownership status of parents and how the association has changed over time. Homeownership rates are significantly lower among younger birth cohorts than among older cohorts. At the same time, intergenerational mobility toward renting is increasing: adult children of parents who own their own homes are more likely to move into rentals. Children whose parents rent are less likely to buy a home. The relative association between parental homeownership and children owning homes is declining significantly over time. However, unequal opportunities for homeownership based on family background remains an ongoing issue in Germany. In a European comparison, the homeownership status of children in Germany still depends relatively strongly on that of their parents.

A new working paper by E. Benassi and S. Bedük provides new evidence on young people’s homeownership in Europe. The authors find that homeownership at ages 25 to 35 has declined sharply across cohorts born in the 1970s to 1990s, with smaller but still notable declines at ages 40 to 50. Declines at earlier ages, more common among the economically advantaged, likely reflect delayed entry into homeownership, while declines at later ages, concentrated among the disadvantaged, suggest exclusion from ownership altogether.

The authors also show that cross-cohort declines are not explained by differences in the composition of work and family characteristics between cohorts, pointing to more structural factors such as rising house prices.

The study draws on EU-SILC data from 2005 to 2020, covering 24 European countries. It is open access at SocArxiV.

Benassi, E., & Bedük, S. (2025). Young People’s Homeownership in Europe: Delayed or Out of Reach? A Research Note.

A new working paper by S. Bedük, E. Benassi and P. Lersch shows that the relative chances of homeownership between those with and without homeowner parents have remained largely stable across Europeans born in the 1950s to the 1980s. In other words, the intergenerational persistence of homeownership has not changed across these cohorts, as homeownership declined proportionally for both groups. However, this pattern varies considerably between countries, with the authors highlighting the role of national levels of parental homeownership in explaining these differences.

While such relative mobility has been stable, absolute mobility tells a different story. Downward mobility (children of homeowners who rent) rose from 16% to 36%, while upward mobility (children of renters who own) fell from 25% to 9% between the 1950s and 1980s cohorts.

The study draws on EU-SILC data from 2011 and 2019, covering 27 European countries. It is open access at SocArxiV.

Bedük, S., Benassi, E., & Lersch, P. M. (2025). Trends in relative and absolute mobility of homeownership in Europe.

A new open-access study by Sergi Vidal and co-authors in Population, Space and Place shows that separation sharply reduces the likelihood of owning a home—and that regaining ownership is mostly tied to repartnering. Using 1991–2019 panel data from England & Wales (BHPS/Understanding Society) and Germany (SOEP) and multilevel logistic models, the authors find that homeownership rates rise with time since separation primarily because many people form new unions; those who remain single—especially with lower socioeconomic status—rarely return to ownership. The study concludes that separation has long-term effects on housing careers and can widen housing inequalities, particularly in contexts like England & Wales where homeownership is the dominant tenure.

Citation: Mikolai, J., Kulu, H., Thomas, M. J., & Vidal, S. (2025). Time since separation, repartnering, and homeownership in England and Wales, and Germany. Population, Space and Place, 31(6), e70073.

On August 1st, 2025, Bettina Hünteler joined the DECIPHE project as a new member. As a postdoctoral researcher at DIW Berlin in Philipp Lersch’s team, her work will focus on explaining variations in the persistence of homeownership across countries and over time. Bettina is a trained sociologist and demographer who holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cologne. Before joining DECIPHE, she worked as a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research and at the University of Cologne. In addition to her work on the intergenerational transmission of homeownership and wealth, she is interested other aspects of social inequality—such as health—and how they relate to the family and migration, integrating the life course perspective and both within- and between-individual heterogeneity.

Sergi Vidal has launched a call for papers for a special issue in Comparative Population Studies (CPoS) on Migration Trajectories Across the Life Course.

This special issue, launched by the IUSSP’s Lifetime Migration panel, seeks to advance research on the diversity of migration trajectories—whether internal, international or interconnected—and their impact on both individual and societal outcomes.

See for more details here.

On January 30-31, 2025, the DECIPHE project held its inaugural in-person workshop at DIW Berlin, bringing together all project team members and members of the advisory board for two days of presentations, discussions, and networking.

The workshop opened with an introduction and project overview, followed by brief presentations from all PIs and research teams. These sessions highlighted ongoing research and potential areas for collaboration, sparking lively discussions. A key focus of the first day was a deep dive into the survey design for the primary data collection within DECIPHE.

The second day featured insights from advisory board members Clara Mulder and Frans Willekens, followed by an in-depth discussion on the development of a contextual database to be developed in the project.

This workshop marked an important step in shaping the project’s direction, fostering new ideas, and strengthening collaboration across teams. Stay tuned for future updates!

We’re excited to announce that the DECIPHE project is officially underway! On July 19, 2024, all Principal Investigators met virtually to kick off the project, which officially began on July 1, 2024, thanks to funding from the Volkswagen Foundation.

The kick-off meeting was a great start, with the PIs discussing the work ahead and getting ready for what’s to come. There was a lot of enthusiasm about the project and what it could achieve.

We’re also happy to welcome two new team members: Enrico Benassi from the University of Oxford and Byambasuren Dorjnyambuu from Tarki, Budapest. Their addition to the team is a big plus as we get started.

More updates will follow as the project progresses!