The project is an historical analysis of Norwegian housing policy and the Norwegian state’s Housing Bank in recent decades (1996-2020). An illustrated academic book in Norwegian based on a comprehensive selection of oral and written sources is the end goal of the project.
Our aim is to publish a book that will be a significant contribution to the scholarly literature on Norwegian housing policy and the Norwegian welfare state. Many academic texts on the welfare state neglect the development of housing policy and housing markets – this is arguably an unfortunate blind spot in the academic literature. Unlike many other areas of the Norwegian welfare state – frequently characterized by historical stability or expansion – the recent history of housing is a story of retrenchment, deregulation and reform.
Thus, the book may challenge and deepen our understanding of the development of the Norwegian welfare state since the 1990s.
Topics covered in the book
- The long view: Norwegian housing policy from 1920 to 2020
- The development of Norwegian housing policy in the years of gradual deregulation and increased targeting of policy instruments and services to disadvantaged groups (1978-2003)
- The development of the Housing Bank from “housing bank for all of the people” to a welfare agency in social housing policy directed at disadvantaged households
- The Housing Banks policy instruments (housing allowances, housing grants etc.) and their effects for the recipients
- The digitalization of the Housing Bank’s policy instruments and services
- The Housing Bank’s work related to area-based interventions and the ageing society
