Housing and Welfare in Sweden, Norway and the wider Nordic region

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors discuss the historical development and the current state of the housing and welfare regimes in the Nordic countries, using Sweden and Norway as our main cases. The two neighbouring countries on the Scandinavian peninsula are often classified as generous social democratic welfare regimes with a high level of universalism and de-commodification. In the first postwar decades, however, Sweden and Norway chose different paths in the sphere of housing policy. In Sweden, there are four main forms of tenure. Ownership rights (owner-occupied housing) are mainly enjoyed in single-family houses. The Norwegian housing regime is a liberal and selective sector of what is still a generous welfare regime with many universal benefits and services. Sweden and Norway both experienced a gradual “system shift” in housing policy in the 1980s, 1990s and after the millennium.