Understanding the drivers for, and policy responses to, the rapid growth of private renting in england: has ‘generation rent’ been ‘priced out’?

This thesis investigates the factors which account for the rapid growth of private renting in England and how these factors have interacted to produce the growth. It challenges the most common explanation which is that potential owner occupiers were ‘priced out’ and have instead become private renters. A mixed methods approach addressed three key limitations of popular and academic explanations of this trend using an analytical framework developed from critical realism. Multivariate analysis of socio-economic changes between 2001 and 2011 assessed the interaction between drivers and their relative influence. Geo-demographic analysis identified different niches within the private rented sector in Birmingham and highlighted the diversity of the tenure. Wider political drivers were investigated using Political Discourse Analysis. These political drivers shaped supply and demand for private renting at a national and local level. Research findings demonstrate that the growth of the tenure is due to the interaction of a wide range of drivers acting from the global to the individual. Drivers acting at a variety of levels results in differential growth across niches and geographic areas. My results confirm the importance of the growth of private renting, particularly in relation to the polarisation of wealth and accommodation for low-income households