Housing

Aidan Regan: Frustrated renters are a political force to be reckoned with

There is very little data available on housing wealth inequality yet it plays a big part in politics – over 75 per cent of non-homeowners plan to vote for Sinn Féin and other left parties at the next election

Over the past decade, there has been a surge in social science research on the politics of economic inequality. Most of this research tends to focus on how inequality in the labour market affects voting behaviour and preference formation. Wealth inequalities, and in particular housing wealth inequalities, have largely been neglected in these studies.

This is despite the fact that a defining feature of rich capitalist democracies since the 1990s is a boom in house ...