Housing policies are implemented for different reasons, one of which is to improve housing outcomes for lower-income households. To achieve that objective, countries adopt different strategies, suggesting that differences in housing outcomes for low-income households might be expected. The broad concern of this study is whether the housing outcomes for low-income households are different when different housing policies apply.

Many factors, in addition to housing policy, impinge on housing outcomes in the short and the longer term. Among these, the influence of economic conditions, political and governance systems, demographic factors, welfare regimes, the urbanization process, and cultural traditions has been highlighted in the diverse field of housing-related research. In this study, it is the relative importance of housing policy strategy – defined by Kemeny (1995a) as an enduring set of principles (and assumptions about how housing markets function) underpinning specific policy interventions – that provides the analytical focus.