Measuring universality in social protection: a pilot study on housing benefits

ENThe aim of this report is to analyse the degree of universality of housing (support) policy across the EU member states and to refine the set of most relevant and reliable indicators that could be used to measure the universality of housing policy. The study is based on the analytical framework developed by Muñoz de Bustillo Llorente et al. (2020) proposing to measure universal social protection through the two main dimensions of coverage and adequacy. We understand coverage of housing policy as the degree to which state housing support is provided to those in need, and we propose to measure it in light of a wide range of different forms of housing support and regulations (indicators on social rental housing, housing allowances, government expenditure on housing, rental market regulation, and tenure status). We understand adequacy of housing policy as the extent to which the housing needs are adequately covered by the housing policy. We propose to measure it as a combination of indicators that characterize housing affordability (housing expenditure and house price to income ratio), availability (overcrowding rate and average age of young people leaving the parental household) and adequacy/quality (share of population encountering problems with their dwelling and around it); in addition, we also propose to include an indicator that defines satisfaction with the dwelling. In this report, we also present and discuss the results of the measured universality of housing (support) policy in the EU Member States applying our proposed methodology. The analysis is performed using OECD and Eurostat data available at the EU level. The report highlights the limitations of the data as well as possible solutions to address them, with the aim of improving the assessment of universality of housing policy and comparability across the EU member states in the future. [From the publication]