Left‐right Orientation, Homeownership and Class Position in Sweden

Abstract

Sweden is a country where left‐right orientation structures the political landscape, homeownership is increasingly important, and the importance of class for political preferences and behavior is changing or even weakening. This article explores the significance of homeownership for left‐right orientation in Sweden, and extends the relationship to include class position. By combining detailed cross‐sectional survey data with data on regional house price variations it suggests that homes function as an economic asset that affects individual political preferences. Furthermore, the relationship between homeownership and left‐right orientation is expected to be driven by particular class groups, whose labor market position imply a more leftist orientation, while their status as homeowners imply a more rightist one. The expectation is borne out, which indicates that the asset function of homes help accounting for changing class patterns of left‐right orientation in Sweden.

Is the left right? The creeping embourgeoisement of social democracy through homeownership

“…The third expectation derived from existing literature introduces parties and policies and is perhaps the most well-known. This conservatism expectation sees homeowners as more likely to vote for conservative parties (Verberg, 2000) or the status-quo incumbent government (Larsen et al, 2019), to lean towards the political right (Davidsson, 2018) and to hold preferences against higher taxes, against welfare state expenditure and in favour of more market solutions (Ansell, 2012(Ansell, , 2014André & Dewilde, 2016;Lux & Mau, 2018). In terms of party choice, the major conservative parties in Switzerland and Germany have traditionally expressed themselves to be in favour of more homeownership, whereas social democrats were much less likely to mention homeownership in their manifestos and are rather known as parties of tenants and of cooperative and social housing (Kohl, 2020).…”