Kováts Bence: The Financialisation of Housing and Housing-related Family Support in Hungary
›
6. Trends and determinants of parental support after the regime change
›
6.1. General trends
›
6.1.1. Changing causes of non-provision of support

6.1.1. Changing causes of non-provision of support

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Between the two waves of the HCSO survey there is a significant difference in the share of respondents not answering the question about providing support to their adult children living independently (overwhelmingly denoting households who do not have an adult child living independently). In the 2003 survey, 38% of respondents did not provide an answer to the question about their support for their adult children, while in the 2015 survey there was an over 66% share of missing answers. Though the share of young adults in co-residence dynamically increased in the period as presented in Section 4.2.2, the reason behind such a big difference can barely be explained simply by a drop in the share of respondents with independently living adult children as intergenerational co-residence did not double in the period. Supposedly, as other parts of the dataset also confirm, there are more missing answers in the 2015 sample than in the 2003 one.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Data show that among respondents to the question there is practically the same share of households (in 2003 35%, in 2015 36%) who provided support to their children (see Figure 6.). However, as discussed in the previous section, intergenerational co-residence and the provision of temporary accommodation do not perfectly overlap and the increase of intergenerational co-residence recorded by EUROSTAT (in contrast with decreasing temporary accommodation recorded by the survey) after the millennium implies that parental support grew in the period.
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Figure 6. Share of parent households with independently living adult children providing housing support and non-supporting parent households by the reason of the lack of provision.
 

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Another interesting fact shown by Figure 6 is that there is a significant difference in the distribution of people who could not and who did not need to provide support. In 2003 41% could not, and 24% did not need to provide support, while in the 2015 survey, respective figures in both cases are 32%. Given that in the 2003 sample there is a higher proportion of people with children obtaining public housing in the last decade of state socialism, and therefore supposedly not needing parental support, the direction of change is very surprising. The trend might suggest that parents had less difficulties with providing support in the 2003-2015 period while the need of support by children decreased as time passed since the regime change. A plausible assumption is that as Hungary left the economic shock following the regime change behind, a higher share of parent households could support their children. At the same time, the emergence of market finance options enable some young adults to obtain housing without parental support.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

However, it should not be forgotten that non-provision due to the lack of need rose to the detriment of non-provision due to the lack of means of support and not the provision of support. This might mean that those not affording to support their child(ren) in the 1990s did not necessarily know if their support would have actually been accepted (that is, needed) by their offspring, however, once they did not suffer the economic consequences of the regime change, a higher share of them knew their support was not needed.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

A large part of the increase in the lack of need can also be caused by housing affordability problems as the rising share of young adults staying in the private rental sector, often shared with friends as described by McLoughlin (2013) in the UK context, need parental support to a lesser extent. Also, construction support, the type of parental support available in families lacking the means to provide financial support, could be provided to a lesser extent due to the restrictions of the use of family labour in housing construction. Support can be best utilised in the form of financial support today, however, amidst rising housing prices, it is less likely that financial support provided by lower-class parents can cover a meaningful part of the purchase price.

Jegyzet elhelyezéséhez, kérjük, lépj be.!

Another cause can be the avoidance of parental control. As described in Druta and Ronald (2018) and Heath and Calvert (2013) parental support often goes together with exercising control over the choice and use of the apartment obtained through parental support. Prospects of strengthening parental control, especially coupled with a low financial contribution can prompt young adults not to accept parental support even if they actually could make use of it. Contradictory potential causes of such developments can be better evaluated through the examination of independent variables affecting the two types of lacking support.
 
chevron_left
chevron_right
Tartalomjegyzék navigate_next
Keresés a kiadványban navigate_next
A kereséshez, kérjük, lépj be!
Könyvjelzőim navigate_next
A könyvjelzők használatához
be kell jelentkezned.
Jegyzeteim navigate_next
Jegyzetek létrehozásához
be kell jelentkezned.
    Kiemeléseim navigate_next
    Mutasd a szövegben:
    Szűrés:
    Kiemelések létrehozásához
    MeRSZ+ előfizetés szükséges.
      Útmutató elindítása
      delete
      Kivonat
      fullscreenclose
      printsave