Mortgage default and possession as a result of unemployment has been a feature of Britain and some other Western industrialized countries in the 1980s. This has prompted comments, based on abstract models of the processes involved, about the limits of owner-occupation in the context of the restructuring of labour markets. In this paper it is demonstrated that this is not a universal limitation. Finland which has the prerequisites in terms of high rates of owner-occupation and unemployment does not also have high rates of default. A housing provision framework is used to show that the structural position of the Finnish owner-occupier is consistent with this outcome.
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