The Wobbly Pillar Revisited: The Decline of Social Housing in Britain Welfare State

Housing in the UK, unlike other pillars of the welfare state such as healthcare, was never completely separated from market logic, making it the shaky foundation of the country's social system. In contrast to the National Health Service, shelter remained in constant competition with the private market, and this contradictory coexistence has left it highly vulnerable to political and economic changes. Aiming to analyze the decline of social housing in Britain, the researcher examines the evolution of this policy from its golden era after World War II to the current supply crisis. The importance of this subject lies in the fact that accommodation directly affects other aspects of public well-being—including health, education, and family stability—and its crisis creates a chain reaction across the entire welfare structure. The main question of this study is why and how housing, despite its initial role in the British welfare project, became the weakest and most unstable element of this framework. Using a library research method along with the content analysis of documents and academic sources, the findings show that the "Right to Buy" policy in the ۱۹۸۰s was a key turning point in the irreversible reduction of social housing stock. Combined with structural barriers in the land planning system, the absence of a strong public actor for direct construction, and the government's withdrawal from a direct building role, this initiative led to a chronic supply shortage. This crisis is visible through growing geographical and class inequality, an increasing reliance on rental subsidies such as Housing Benefit and Universal Credit, and a deep intergenerational gap in housing access. Ultimately, it can be argued that this problem is the product of identifiable policy decisions and a specific historical path, rather than an unavoidable market outcome; therefore, it can be corrected through a revision of urban planning and housing policies

کلیدواژه ها:

Welfare state ، Housing ، United Kingdom ، Right to Buy ، Housing supply crisis