Migration, Culture and Family Financial Assistance with Home Ownership

• Julia Cook, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, The University of Newcastle, Australia

Intergenerational financial assistance with first home ownership has attracted increasing scholarly and public attention in recent years. Rates of this type of assistance, as well as sums involved, are particularly high in Australia, with around 60 percent of first home buyers receiving an average of $99,000 in mid-2021 (DFA, 2021). Research to date has focused on family cultures of transmission (Brannen, 2006), the role of welfare state regimes (Albertini and Kohli, 2013), and social norms and obligations (Rowlingson, Joseph and Overton, 2017). However, it has remained silent on the significance of culture and family experiences of migration. This seminar seeks to address these areas of silence in the literature. 

Drawing on the findings of an ongoing interview-based study of donors and recipients of family financial assistance in New South Wales, this seminar considers how family experiences of migration may shape the types of financial assistance that are provided and how they are understood, how financial assistance is negotiated and managed across national borders, and how culture may be used as an explanatory framework for both giving and accepting family financial assistance with first home ownership.

Julia Cook is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research interests include the sociology of youth, time and housing, and the intersections of each of these topics and economic sociology. Her most recent research addresses the role of family financial assistance in young adults’ pathways into home ownership and  young adults’ navigation of debt and financial assistance, with a particular focus on buy now pay later services. She is a current ARC DECRA Fellow (2022-2025), and a chief investigator on the current phase of the ARC-funded Life Patterns longitudinal research program (2021-2026). She is co-editor in chief of Journal of Applied Youth Studies and was recently selected as a 2022 ABC Top 5 (Humanities) scholar.

If you would like to attend this online seminar, please register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/migration-culture-and-family-financial-assistance-with-home-ownership-tickets-710213265997?aff=oddtdtcreator