The paper focuses on the control homeowners have over common issues in a multi-apartment building. It specifically aims to contribute to further examination and recognition of the role various forms of power play in residents' everyday life in addition to the formal condominium arrangements. Drawing on wide homeownership literature and building on the structuration theory, we portray the multi-apartment building as a particular "locale" and propose a conceptualization of power in terms of "frames" to be tested for its explanatory ability. Using survey data from Ljubljana, our exploratory analysis confirms how, besides the formal frame of power (property and management rights), two other frames - community/social control and residents' co-action - are statistically significant for explaining residents' feeling of being in control, their role even larger. The proposed conceptualization might be useful for illuminating the cross-national variability in homeownership and possible parallels with other countries.
COBISS.SI-ID: 35801949
Regarding the dramatic shift towards home ownership in transition countries, the changing macro policy frameworks have been widely discussed, whereas the meaning of home ownership remains an under-researched issue. This paper examines the motives for home ownership and aims to identify any change in them parallel to the contextual transformations. An exploratory qualitative analysis of 25 interviews indicates a change in argumentation from a mostly detailed circumstantial consideration among pre-transitional entrants to mainly modest argumentation among post-transitional entrants, which took home ownership as a "normal tenure" and "the market" as a self-referential, self-justifying interpretative framework, as is typical of the neoliberal transitional discourse. Our specific data-driven categorization of the motives demonstrates the impact of contextual change on the meanings of tenures and the relative rise in attractiveness of home ownership. In contrast, public renting shared the destiny of many other public welfare institutions that had previously served as a hedge against individual risks, but were retrenched and restructured during transition. Public renting proved to be specifically exposed and highly vulnerable to political pressures.
COBISS.SI-ID: 34906461
The transformations in the welfare state regimes that have occurred globally, over the last three decades or so, have seriously affected the capacity of states to sustain the previous levels of social care and protection. These changes, already being manifested, inter alia, in trends in declining earnings of pensioners have inspired some researchers in this field to explore alternative ways of mitigating their impact on the well-being of the elderly during the retirement period. One of the theories that has been advanced to this effect is the so-called asset-based welfare concept which suggests that the wealth accumulated by people in the form of housing assets presents a financial reservoir that may serve as a source of income for pensioners in time of need. To address these issues, a variety of mechanisms have been developed and presented as "equity release products" that may be used by senior homeowners to improve their living situation. This article contributes to the debate from the perspective of a country in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a region that has been rarely included in the scholarly discourse on the topic. While there might have been some level of success in the implementation of these instruments in some countries, the survey findings presented and discussed in this article show that Slovenian elderly homeowners strongly reject all the equity release products that were presented to them as potential options for alleviating financial hardship in old age....
COBISS.SI-ID: 35896669
European states are facing challenges how to successfully restructure their welfare systems in times of numerous external and internal pressures, among them especially the demographic pressure and the impact of global economic crisis. Slovenia was one of European countries that were hit hardest by the crisis in 2009. Likewise, Slovenia is facing severe challenges regarding population ageing. In the paper, we are interested in people's attitudes toward the existing welfare policies, as well as their preferences for the future development of the Slovenian welfare state and whether the implemented policies differ from people's attitudes taking into account the potential trade-offs between the social protection paradigm on one side and the social investment paradigm on the other. The analysis utilised data gathered with the method of deliberative forums that were carried out in 2015. Deliberative forums allow a "bottom-up" approach to research. Our analysis shows that there is a discrepancy between ordinary citizens' expectations for the future development of the Slovenian welfare state and the actual direction of the reforms, which could become one of the most salient issues for the legitimacy of the future Slovenian welfare state.
COBISS.SI-ID: 35765341
Theory: The quality of long-term care services has an important effect on the quality of life of their users and their informal carers. By identifying gaps between provision of services and users' needs we can suggest adjustments of the long-term care services and advance their development. Method: The data from the first Slovenian national survey of social homecare (SHC) users and their informal carers was utilised. Linear regression analysis was used to evaluate factors that affect assessments of five dimensional concept of access. Results: On average, affordability was rated the lowest (mean=2.9) and acceptability the highest (4.0), with availability, accessibility and accommodation (mean=3.6) in the middle. Regression analysis explains 15% of variability in affordability, while for other dimensions much less. Caregiver's needs are the most influential predictor of access, negatively influencing the rating of access (availability B=.127, accommodation B=-.113, acceptability B=-.120, affordability B=-.155). Care recipients' needs also affect the rating of affordability (B=-.132). Family income negatively influences the rating of availability (B=-.115), accessibility (B=-.076) and affordability (B=-.270). Residents of rural areas rate availability (B=-.070) and affordability (B=-.067) less favourable. Discussion: This study showed that affordability is rated the least favourable among components of access. Adjustment in private out-of-pocket co-payment mechanism is...
COBISS.SI-ID: 35674973