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Europe's total fertility rate stands at just 1.38 live births per woman — far below the 2.1 replacement level. In this brief, I will argue that housing constraints are a significant contributor to this decline, although they cannot be understood in isolation from broader structural forces. I will first situate housing within the second demographic transition, then identify three mechanisms through which housing specifically depresses fertility, before making three concrete policy recommendations. My central contention is this: the housing crisis is pushing young people to delay or forgo having children altogether.
Before making the case for housing, I want to be clear about what housing cannot explain. Lesthaeghe's (2010) work on the second demographic transition reminds us that falling fertility reflects a deeper structural shift — one driven by rising individualism, expanding higher education, and women's growing labour market participation. To simply blame housing for low fertility would be to misread the evidence. That said, as Mulder and Hooimeijer (1999) have shown, residential decisions are shaped by both structural constraints and the sequencing of life course events. Housing is not separate from these forces — it is embedded within them. And in many European countries, that housing context has become increasingly hostile to family formation.
First, there is the issue of space. Kulu and Steele's research found that people actively anticipate childbearing by moving into single-family homes — and that living in such homes is associated with higher subsequent fertility. Where access to larger, family-sized dwellings is constrained by cost or supply, this transition is blocked. Van Wijk and Feijten's (2026) analysis of the full Dutch population across 2012–2023 reveals that fertility is consistently higher amongst women in terraced or detached housing and larger homes, and that this association has remained stable — even strengthening slightly for first births — as the housing crisis intensified. Their study found that the Dutch total fertility rate fell from 1.80 in 2010 to 1.43 in 2023, a period that coincides precisely with declining homeownership rates amongst young adults and rapidly rising house prices. This is not coincidental.
Second, affordability delays the life course transitions that typically precede fertility. In homeownership societies such as the UK, Spain, and Ireland, owning before starting a family is deeply embedded in cultural norms. When house prices outpace wages — as they have across most major European cities for two decades — young adults are forced to postpone partnership formation, household independence, and ultimately parenthood. This postponement compounds over time into lower lifetime fertility.
Third, tenure insecurity matters. The residualisation of social housing and the rapid expansion of private renting have created a housing environment defined by short tenancies, restricted space, and financial unpredictability — precisely the conditions least conducive to starting a family. Here, van Wijk and Feijten (2026) offer an important nuance: fertility amongst social housing tenants in the Netherlands actually rose relative to both private renters and homeowners during the crisis period. This suggests the problem is not renting itself, but the insecure and expensive form it increasingly takes. Where renting offers genuine stability, it need not suppress childbearing.
I want to be honest about the limits of this evidence. Van Wijk and Feijten (2026) themselves acknowledge that their analysis cannot definitively establish causal direction — unobserved factors such as a general family orientation may simultaneously shape both housing preferences and fertility decisions. Kulu and Steele (2013) raise the same concern. Furthermore, as Esping-Andersen (1990) showed, welfare regime type shapes the conditions under which families form, and housing is only one pillar of that architecture. Germany's persistently low fertility despite its relatively secure and affordable rental market illustrates this well: childcare provision, parental leave, and cultural attitudes towards gender roles all play an independent part. Housing policy alone will not reverse the second demographic transition.
Given all of this, I would make three recommendations to this Commission.
First, prioritise the supply of affordable, family-sized housing in urban areas. This means reforming planning systems that restrict dwelling sizes and investing in social and non-profit housing with long, secure tenancies. Van Wijk and Feijten (2026) also raise a less conventional option worth considering: policies that incentivise older adults to downsize could free up family-friendly stock without requiring new construction — particularly relevant in cities where development is constrained.
Second, housing policy must be integrated with childcare policy. Housing costs and childcare costs compound one another, and a housing-only intervention will have limited impact if childcare remains unaffordable. The evidence is clear that it is the interaction of these pressures, not housing alone, that makes parenthood feel financially unviable for many young couples.
Third, policymakers should move towards more tenure-neutral approaches. High homeownership societies, as Kemeny's housing regimes literature shows, tend to favour low taxes and residual welfare — a configuration that poorly serves young families who are not yet property owners. Supporting renting as a viable long-term choice and investing in social infrastructure rather than property wealth would, I believe, create more family-friendly conditions across Europe.
To conclude: housing constraints contribute to low fertility in Europe through mechanisms of space, affordability, and tenure insecurity. What van Wijk and Feijten's (2026) research makes clear is that young adults are not adapting to the housing crisis by lowering their expectations — they are maintaining them, and delaying or foregoing children as a result. That is the crux of the problem, and it demands a serious policy response. But housing is a necessary, not sufficient, condition for reversing fertility decline. What families ultimately need is a life course environment in which having children feels both financially and practically viable — and that requires action on housing, childcare, and labour market security together.
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