Home ownership and class in modern Canada by Richard Harris In 1886 the Government of Canada established a Royal Commission ‘for the purpose of inquiry into and reporting on all questions arising out of the conflict between labour and capital’ (Kealey, 1973, xi). The commissioners crossed the country, hearing testimony on the conditions of work and home life in the new industrial towns and cities. Housing, its quality, cost and ownership, was one of their major concerns. On this issue they heard much that disturbed them concern- ing health conditions and rents. In their final report, however, setting Canada in its international context, they chose to accentuate the positive. ‘There is’, they declared, one evil from which Canadians are exempt, and that is the tenement house system, which is so prevalent in the cities and larger towns of Europe and the United States . . . [I] t is becoming the rule in Canada for each family to be in possession of a house exclusively used and occupied by its own members . . . This is a feature of our industrial system which is deserving of special mention and one in which we, as Canadians, may well take pride (Kealey, 1973,56-57). It is remarkable how little evidence this statement rested on. The commissioners did not use the assessment rolls, the only source, from which they might have got reliable estimates of home ownership rates in Canada, and no information was then available for the US and western Europe. The implication that most working people owned homes was even more speculative. Not to put too fine a point on it, they did not know what they were talking about. Since then, not much has changed, in Canada or indeed elsewhere. In recent years a great deal has been written about home ownership: about its social and political significance, and about how it should be theorized vis rf vis class (Agnew, 1981; Edel, 1982; Gray, 1982; Pratt, 1982; Rose, 1981; Saunders, 1978; Thorns, 1981). As some are beginning to realize, however, this discussion has taken place in a vacuum. The point is effectively made by Harloe. He argues that Saunders’s recent reinterpretation of the tenure and class debate (Saunders, 1984) is vitiated by the fact that the author cites very little evidence concerning the actual interrelation of these phenomena (Harloe, 1984, 229).’ He might have added that ‘In this recent exchange, Harloe and Saunders are concerned with consumption issues in general, of which housing tenure is only the most significant aspect.
Transcript
Home ownership and class in modern Canada by Richard Harris
In 1886 the Government of Canada established a Royal Commission ‘for the purpose of inquiry into and reporting on all questions arising out of the conflict between labour and capital’ (Kealey, 1973, xi). The commissioners crossed the country, hearing testimony on the conditions of work and home life in the new industrial towns and cities. Housing, its quality, cost and ownership, was one of their major concerns. On this issue they heard much that disturbed them concern- ing health conditions and rents. In their final report, however, setting Canada in its international context, they chose to accentuate the positive. ‘There is’, they declared,
one evil from which Canadians are exempt, and that is the tenement house system, which is so prevalent in the cities and larger towns of Europe and the United States . . . [ I ] t is becoming the rule in Canada for each family to be in possession of a house exclusively used and occupied by its own members . . . This is a feature of our industrial system which is deserving of special mention and one in which we, as Canadians, may well take pride (Kealey, 1973,56-57).
It is remarkable how little evidence this statement rested on. The commissioners did not use the assessment rolls, the only source, from which they might have got reliable estimates of home ownership rates in Canada, and no information was then available for the US and western Europe. The implication that most working people owned homes was even more speculative. Not to put too fine a point on it, they did not know what they were talking about.
Since then, not much has changed, in Canada or indeed elsewhere. In recent years a great deal has been written about home ownership: about its social and political significance, and about how it should be theorized vis r f vis class (Agnew, 1981; Edel, 1982; Gray, 1982; Pratt, 1982; Rose, 1981; Saunders, 1978; Thorns, 1981). As some are beginning to realize, however, this discussion has taken place in a vacuum. The point is effectively made by Harloe. He argues that Saunders’s recent reinterpretation of the tenure and class debate (Saunders, 1984) is vitiated by the fact that the author cites very little evidence concerning the actual interrelation of these phenomena (Harloe, 1984, 229).’ He might have added that
‘ In this recent exchange, Harloe and Saunders are concerned with consumption issues in general, of which housing tenure is only the most significant aspect.
68 Home ownership and class in modem Canada
the reason is simple: in many cases such evidence does not exist. Census takers began to collect information on tenure as early as 1890 in the US, but started later in Canada (1921) and Britain (1961). More to the point, and to this day, very little is known about how home ownership varies from one class to another, and even less about how national patterns of variation have changed with the development of capitalism. The US Census has never published information on housing tenure for occupational or class categories. In Britain data are available for ‘socio economic groups’, but only since 1961. The most useful information is for Canada, where several studies of specific nineteenthcentury cities, the neglected 193 1 Census and a national survey conducted in 1979, yield a valuable series of cross-sectional pictures. As a complement to recent theoretical debates, and in an attempt to bring them down to earth, this paper uses the Canadian evidence to trace changes in the relationship of tenure to class since the rise of industrial capitalism in the mid nineteenth century.
The findings are of more than parochial interest because the forces that have shaped Canada have been dominant elsewhere too. The most important of these has been the progressive and geographically uneven process of capitalist develop- ment. A full explanation in such terms of historical trends in class and tenure is beyond the scope of this paper. Indeed, given the current state of knowledge, such could scarcely be attempted. But, once the bare facts are known, questions inevit- ably arise about their causes and consequences. For that reason, to provide coherence and also to indicate the directions that research might take, the present descriptive account is set loosely within an explanatory framework, while occasional suggestions are also made as to the possible political effects of the patterns that are observed.
I Class m modem Canada
Since the middle years of the nineteenth century, Canadian society has changed almost beyond recognition. A loose collection of British colonies, reliant on agricul- ture and the export of staples, has become an urbanized satellite of the United States, a change described by Innis as that ‘from colony to nation to colony’ (Innis, 1957, 405; cf. Lower, 1946; Naylor, 1975, 1-15;Teeple, 1972).2 Fundamental to this transformation has been the reorganization of production and the restructuring of class (Johnson, 1972; Panitch, 1981; Pentland, 1981), the latter being under- stood in the marxist sense as involving a relation to the means of production (Carchedi, 1977). Technological improvements in agriculture freed people from the land. Farmers, loggers, fishermen and, increasingly, urban artisans found themselves
’The changing nature of Canadian dependency has been the central theme of Canadian economic historians and political economists. The seminal works are by Innis (1957) and Creighton (1956), while recent statements include Levitt (1970), Naylor (1975) Panitch (1981) and Schmidt (1981).
Richard Ham’s 69
unable to compete with large-scale capitalist industry, domestic or foreign. Petty commodity production declined while the classes characteristic of modern capitalism, the working class, the bourgeoisie (comprising owners and managers) and later the middle class, have grown in importance (Hunter, 1981; Johnson, 1972; Palmer, 1983).
The earliest national estimates of class composition have been derived by Cuneo from the 1931 Census (Cuneo, 1983; 1984). Between 1931 and 1971,asa propor- tion of the labourforce the self-employed declined from over 15% to less than 5 . j In almost exact complement, the middle class grew, from 6% to 17%, while the working class grew rather less, from 58% to 67%. These shifts in class composition have been ‘interrupted by periods of recession. The middle class declined slightly in the 1930s while the ranks of the self-employed expanded both in that decade and also, according to Sharpe, in the recession of the late 1970s (Sharpe, 1983). But generally the trends are clear.
In this context, the development of capitalism in Canada has been uneven, resulting in significant regional and urban-rural differences in economic develop- ment and class structure (Clement and Drache, 1978, 92-108; McCann, 1982). Central Canada, comprising Ontario and Quebec, has long been the economic heartland, where the social relations of capitalism first developed (Pentland, 198 1) and where they have penetrated furthest. This is confirmed by a national survey conducted by the Institute for Behavioural Research (IBR) in 1979 (Atkinson et al., 1982). Designed to operationalize Carchedi’s conception of class, the IBR survey shows that the working class and the bourgeoisie were most strongly repre- sented in central Canada (Table 1). In contrast, the Atlantic and Prairie regions were bastions of petty commodity production, while British Columbia (BC) stood apart as a place where large numbers of retired people boosted the proportion of those not in the labourforce.
In Canada, as in most other countries, the class relations of capitalism have always been expressed most clearly in the city. Capital is attracted to urban labour pools which, in consequence, grow larger (Stone, 1967, 17-23; cf. Reissman, 1964; Weber, 1899). Today, the working class comprises 53% of the urban population in Canada but only 40% of the rural (Table 1). In contrast, the self-employed are much more common in the country (22%) than in the city (7%). Again, however, regional differences complicate the picture. At the extremes are the Prairie and Atlantic provinces. In the former, urban and rural areas differ enormously: in the city 54% of all adults are working class, and only 7% self-employed. In the country the proportions are 25% and 44%, respectively. In the Atlantic region, however, there is scarcely any urban-rural difference in class composition, except for a slight underrepresentation of the urban self-employed. Such differences may be under- stood in terms, for example, of the persistence of independent, port-based fishermen in the Atlantic region, and of small farmers in the Prairies. In general, it is clear that
For present purposes the estimates reported by Cuneo were slightly reclassified. The procedure is described in Harris (1984a, 37).
70 Home ownership and class in modem Canada
Table 1 Rural-urban differences in regional class structures, Canada, 1979
Percent of households Atlantic Quebec Ontario Prairies BC Canada R U R U R U R U R U R U
Note: Colums may not add up to 100 due to rounding. Source: Tabulations from the 1979 Survey of Social Change in Canada (Atkinson eta/., 1982).
regions differ considerably not only in their overall class structures but also in the way that those structures are implicated and constituted in city and country.
At national, regional and local scales, these changes have had profound. political implications (Hunter, 1981, 172-227). The growth of the working class, for example, led to the emergence of a distinctive class-based culture of dissent in the nineteenth century, with the birth of unions and socialist politics, with the forma- tion of a socialist party, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), in the 1930s, and with continued support for the CCF’s successor, the New Democratic Party (NDP) (Horowitz, 1968; Morton and Copp, 1980; Palmer, 1983). The CCF received much of its early impetus from Prairie farmers, squeezed by drought and depression, but small western agrarian interests have as often supported parties of the extreme right as of the left (Macpherson, 1953). In all regions, although in different ways, the concentration of people in cities has helped to promote the organization and expression of political dissent (Chorney, 1981 ; cf. Chorney, 1983), while class segregation within the city has sometimes sewed to enhance this effect (Harris, 1984b). Yet urbanization also appears to have facilitated the organization of parochial booster lobbies: common interests in local growth have often prompted labour and capital to join forces in promoting ‘their’ city’s economy at the expense of others’, thereby obscuring the ties of class with those of localism (Sancton, 1983; cf. Peterson, 1981; Urry, 1981). Changes in class composition, then, have shaped Canadian politics at all scales.
LI Housing tenure m modern Canada
So too, in a more modest way, have changes in housing tenure, but this has not been acknowledged. The topic of housing tenure finds no place in any of the modern histories or social surveys of the country (e.g. Morton, 1983; Porter, 1965),
Richard Ham's 7 1
although its has recently received some attention from social and urban historians of the nineteenth century (Darroch, 1983a; 1983b; Doucet, 1976; Harris ef al., 1981; Katz er al., 1982, Chapter 4; Piva, 1983; Weaver, 1978). Even in the litera- ture on Canadian housing trends and policy, tenure is given short shrift (Dennis and Fish, 1972, 70-71; Rose, 1980; Saywell, 1975), although this is beginning to change (Steele, 1979, 123-70; Miron, 1979, 87-90). Firestone's comprehensive review is unsatisfactory, being dated, occasionally unreliable, and confined to the analysis of national trends (Firestone, 1951, 52-56, 67-69, 115-16, 397-99). Even the broad trends, and geographical variations, in housing tenure have not been properly documented, and to do so it is necessary to turn to primary sources.
1 The twentieth century
Since 1921, the first year that national data were published, Canada's home ownership rate has fluctuated between 57% and 66% and is now close to the historical average (Table 2).4 Two related factors, opposite in their effects upon levels of
Table 2 Household home ownership rates in Canada, 187 1 - 198 1
Percent of households Public Private Owner-occupation rental rental Overall Urban Rural
Figures in parentheses ere estimates from local data (see text). ' a
Ownership among occupiers of agricultural lends. Estimate derived from construction statistics reported in Firestone (1951, Table 1 and Table 22) for 1923). Estimates derived from data for families. Estimate made by Firestone (1951, Table 21) for 1949. Estimate derived from statistics reported by Dennis and Fish 11972, 181 ) - Estimate derived from construction statistics reported in CMHC, Canadian HousingSfatistics, 1981, Table 14 and Canadian Council on Social Development, A review of Canadian social housing policy, 69.
'
Source: Canada Census (except where otherwise noted).
based on reported data for families (Harris, 19842, 37). Statistics on household home ownership rates for 1921 are the author's estimates and are
72 Home ownership and class in modem Canada
home ownership, have been at work: urbanization and rising real incomes. Rates have always been about 30% hlgher in the country than in the city (Table 2). The contrast is greatest between the farmer and the city dweller, but even rural non-farm households have very high ownership rates, a fact mainly attributable to low land costs (Steele, 1979, 83). Between 1921 and 1981 urbanization proceeded apace, the urban proportion of the population rising from 47 to 76%. As a result, although the urban home ownership rate rose from 49% to 56% in those years, the overall rate declined. The fact that the urban rate increased is attributable to a secular increase in real incomes. Income has been crucial because Canadians have typically bought homes whenever they could afford to do so (Steele, 1979, 123-70; Harris, 1986; cf. Struyk, 1976). Low incomes seem not to have been a barrier to ownership in the country, at least in recent years, but they have in the city (Steele, 1979, 125). The effect of rising incomes, then, has been to counteract the largely negative effect of urbanization on the overall ownership rate.
These two factors account for the national trend but not always for short-run fluctuations. Urban rates declined between 1951 and 1971 despite rising incomes, and then increased in the 1970s when income growth slowed. The latter increase has been explained in a variety of ways: the development of low-cost alternatives to the single family dwelling, the ageing of the baby boom generation, more women going out to work, and the emergence of inflationary expectations, which encouraged households to buy immediately rather than later (McFadyen and Hobart, 1978; Miron, 1982). The relative importance of these factors is unknown, but clearly incomes and urban growth are not the only key.
Ths has also been true at the regional scale. To be sure, variations in the level and rate of urbanization account for some of the regional differences in home ownership. The Prairies and the Atlantic regions illustrate this point in different ways: in 1921 the former was the least urbanized region in the country, but since then urban growth has proceeded rapidly, bringing the ownership rate down closer to the national average (Table 3). Conversely, because of its increasingly peripheral role in the Canadian economy, the Atlantic region has been characterized both by a low level and a low rate of urban growth, and its ownership rate, always high, has increased in relative and absolute terms, being 12% higher than the national average in 198 1 (Table 3). When disaggregated into its rural and urban components, however, the regional advantage is reduced to 5 and 6%, respectively. Here, then, roughly half of the regional difference is attributable to a rural-urban compositional effect. But this is almost irrelevant in Quebec. There the level of urbanization (78%) is very close to the national average (76%), and the low provincial rate of ownership is due almost entirely to the exceptional situation in the cities, especially Montreal. In 1921 the ownership rate in the latter city was barely 15%, and even today it trails by that amount behind Toronto, the only Canadian city of comparable size. Since Montreal has never accounted for less than a half of Quebec’s urban population, its exceptionally low ownership rates have depressed considerably the provincial average. If urbanization does not explain the anomaly of Quebec, neither does income: those who have considered the issue have concluded that cultural differences
Richard Harris 73
Table 3 Home ownership rates for Canadian regions, 1921 -8 1 ~~ ~~
Quebec 17.2 11.4 12.9 7.5 6.0 12.3 11.0 Range Excl.
Household rates estimated from reported data on families
Source: Canada Census, 1921-81.
between English and French Canada are of decisive importance here (Copp, 1974,84; Firestone, 1951, 165-166; Harris, 1986; Langlois, 1961, 2; Steel, 1979, 81, 137-41). Altogether, then, the growth of incomes and cities provides us with a necessary, but incomplete, framework for understanding home ownership in Canada since 192 1 .
2 The nineteenth century
Prior to that date, the evidence is rather thin and does not allow for the examina- tion of regional differences. No comprehensive national data are available. For rural areas the Census of Agriculture reveals that home ownership was very high (Table 2). For urban areas, the only published evidence pertains to three nineteenth- century Ontario cities (Table 4). Using assessment rolls, researchers have estimated home ownership rates for Kingston (Levine, 1974; Harris et al., 1981), Hamilton (Doucet, 1976; Katz et al., 1982; Weaver, 1982) and Toronto (Darroch, 1983a; 1983b). These estimates reveal a broad similarity in local experience. In the latter two decades of the nineteenth century ownership rates varied with city size, being lowest in Toronto, probably because of differences in land costs. The range of values was never great, however, and by 1921 had declined to 4%. Moreover, the trend seems to have been much the same in each city : a slow and unsteady in- crease until about 1881, stagnation in the 1880s and 189Os, and again in the 1910s, but an astonishing boom in the first decade of the century, when rates increased by almost 20%. The existence of this boom has gone unrecognized, and indeed has been flatly contradicted by other scholars who, however, lacked accurate information on the matter (cf. Piva, 1979, 125; Saywell, 1975, 40-41).
7 4 Home ownership and class in modem Canada
Table 4 Home ownership rates in three Ontario cities, 1952-1921
Percent home owners
Toronto’ Hamilton’ Kingston’
1852 1861 1871 1881 1891 1901 191 1 1921 5
- -
(28.5) (28.9) (28.5) ( 26.4)‘ 47.1 51.9
26.5 25.6 33
(30.5) (34.5) (33.3) (51.4) 55.0
- (30.91
37.2 35.6 32.4
51 .O
-
-
Figures in parentheses are sample estimates
Darroch (1 983a. 42) and City of Toronto (1 918,6). Doucet (1976, 91); Katz e t el. (1982, 133) and Weaver (1982, Tabla6). For 1871 theesti- mate reported by Katzetal. is preferred to that in Doucet (1976) beceuse it is more accurate (Doucet, personal communication, 27 January 1984). Levine (1974, 53) and Harris e t a/. (1981,275). 1899 Household rates are estimates from reported data on families.
Since there is no agreement as to whether incomes rose or stagnated in these years (cf. Rva, 1979, 27-60; Bertram and Percy, 1979), it is clearly premature to propose an explanation for this boom. Altogether, no period in modern Canadian history more clearly demonstrates the extent and significance of our continuing ignorance about home ownership.
Similarities in local experience encourage speculation about the national trend. In 1921, ownership rates in the three cities were all just above the national average. If the same was true in earlier years, we might infer a national urban rate of about 27% in 1881, rising very slightly in the 1880s, falling in the 1890s and then taking off in the first decade of the century (Tables, 1,4). At the time that the commis- sioners were writing, then, in the mid-l980s, it was far from being true that most Canadians owned their own home; indeed it was hardly even ‘becoming’ true. The turnaround came over 10 years later, for reasons that remain obscure.
3 Discussion
The significance of these shifts in tenure composition are almost entirely unknown. It is probable that the extension of home ownership has had major consequences for family life and for national, provincial and local politics. In Britain and the US, for example, some writers have suggested that ownership inclines households to turn in on themselves (e.g. Hayden, 1984) and may make them more conserva- tive. Others disagree (e.g. Edel, 1982). But at least it has been recognized that home ownership is important. The same is not true in Canada. There, historians of
Richard H m ’ s 75
domestic work and the family have neglected the topic (Bradbury, 1982; Luxton, 1980; Parr, 1982, StrongBoag, 1983). Similarly, although there is evidence that Canadians have often believed home ownership to be a politically stabilizing in- fluence, few have thought to consider the issue. Harris et al. (1981) acknowledge that the emergence of the Single Tax Movement, one of the more popular forms taken by radical politics in the nineteenth century, gained much impetus from the fact that most urban Canadians at the time were tenants (cf. Englander, 1983). Two writers have attributed labour unrest after the first world war to high housing costs and the frustration of home ownership aspirations (Dalzell, 1928, 9; Saywell, 1975, 15). Similarly, Rose (1980, iv) has hinted that the increase in tenancy in the 1960s contributed to political unrest at that time. These suggestions indicate how important tenure shifts mlght have been, but are largely speculative.
III Classandtenure
As the Royal Commissioners implicitly recognized in their concern with working class housing, much of the significance of class and housing tenure depend upon their interrelation. For that reason it is important to know how ownership has varied from one class to another. This is not a question that has intrigued many Canadian scholars. On the one hand, when the social composition of owners as opposed to tenants has been considered, incomes and demographic characteristics have been emphasized (e.g. Miron, 1979; Steele, 1979). On the other, tenure has not been considered as an important aspect of class experience. A recent analysis of property and class in Canada (Knlght, 1982, 4) explicitly sets aside the issue of home ownership on the questionable ground that the latter are not ‘productive’, and are therefore merely an ‘outcome or indicator’ of social stratification. This begs the question. Neglect is also apparent where it might least be expected, in studies of the working class. Recent surveys of working-class history, for example. even Palmer’s review of the ‘totality of working class experience’ (Palmer, 1983, 3), have little or nothing to say on this question (Kealey, 1981; Morton and Copp, 1980). Only urban historians have looked at the interrelation of tenure and class, thereby providing us with some useful information about the nineteenth century. For the twentieth, however, we must again turn to neglected primary sources.
1
The trend over the past 50 years may be inferred from a comparison of the evidence contained in two neglected sources, the 1931 Census and the 1979 IBR survey. These are somewhat limited, for they allow us to examine only rural-urban differ- ences in 1979, together with urban trends since 1931 at the national, regional and local scales. Nevertheless, they do reveal some interesting trends.
The IBR survey shows that in 1979 home ownership was lowest among the working class and highest among independent business people, owners and managers
National and regional trends since 1931
Tab
le 5
C
lass
and
hom
e ow
ners
hip in
Can
ada,
193
1 an
d 19
79
Per
cent
hom
e ow
ners
A
bsol
ute
1931
19
79
perc
ent
chan
ge
Dis
trib
. R
ate
Dis
tri b
. R
ate
Dis
trib
. R
ate
Dis
trib
. R
ate
(urb
an)
Urb
an
Urb
an
Rur
al
Ove
rall
1931
-79
Ow
ners
and
m
anag
ers
10.0
58
.4
11.1
71
.5
9.0
90.7
10
.8
74.1
13
.1
Mid
dle
clas
s 6
.O
40.7
13
.4
64.1
12
.1
84.5
13
.2
66.9
23
.4
Wor
king
cla
ss
57.1
37
.6
52.5
50
.0
39.9
84
.3
50.4
54
.3
12.4
Sel
f-em
ploy
ed
10.8
56
.0
6.6
64.2
22
.3
94.4
9.
2 75
.8
8.2
Oth
er
16.1
60
.0
16.3
47
.4
16.7
81
.3
16.3
53
.0
-12.
6
Tota
l 10
0 45
.5
100
54.8
10
0 86
.6
100
59.1
9.
3
Sam
ple
n =
24
85
479
2967
~~
~~
~ ~~
Sou
rce:
Cal
cula
ted f
rom
Can
ada,
Cen
sus,
193
1 (s
ee te
xt);
tabu
latio
nsfr
om t
he 1
979S
urve
y of
Soc
ial C
hang
e in
Can
ada
(Atk
inso
n era/., 1
982)
.
I
I
78 Home ownership and class in modem Canada
(Table 5; Figure 1). The middle class fell almost exactly between the two extremes. The range of class experience was greater in the city than the country : the owner- ship rate for the urban working class lagged almost 22% behind that for owners and managers, but in the country the difference was less than one third that amount. This is not surprising: in rural areas income is much less of a barrier to ownership, allowing rates to converge. But if all classes had higher ownership rates in the country, some did better, in relative terms, than others. The self-employed, for example, clearly rank second to the owners and managers in urban areas, but have the m e s t ownership rate of any in the rural. This presumably reflects the fact that urban small businesses have been squeezed even more tightly than the family farm in recent years. In both places, then, and especially in the city, class differences in tenure are apparent.
They have undergone some important shifts over the past half century. Published Census statistics for 193 1 pertain to urban home ownership among families headed by men in specified occupational groups, With careful manipulation, however, they can be made to yield reliable estimates of class-specific rates which are directly comparable to the IBR data (Table S).’ Such comparison reveals that since 1931 urban ownership has increased among all classes. The amount of increase varied considerably, however, from a high of 23% among the middle class to a low of 8% among the self-employed, presumably reflecting differences in the economic fortunes of the groups in question. The middle class, very similar in their owner- ship position to the working class in 1931, have since moved closer to that of the owners and managers. In contrast the small business people are falling back in relative terms, towards the situation of the working class. In terms of home owner- ship, then, some national realignments in class situation have occurred.
These are a composite of regional shifts which have reflected the geographically uneven nature of economic development. In 1931, the relative position of the four major classes was the same in every region except BC, where the working class fared rather well and the middle class quite poorly (Table 6). Since then, owners and managers have done very well in central Canada, but much worse on the east and west coasts. Indeed, in the Atlantic region they were less likely to be owners in 1979 than in 1931. This might have reflected the increasing concentration of corpor- ate power and wealth in central Canada in this period, together with a corresponding decline in the periphery, particularly the east. If so, it is curious that it did not affect all other classes in the same manner. The middle class did well everywhere, except BC, but especially in the Atlantic region and Quebec. Selective westward migration, and demographic differences in regional labour forces, might account for such differences. What is especially striking, however, is the way that, at the regional level, the experience of small business people almost exactly mirrors that of the owners and managers, being poor in Ontario, and excellent in the Atlantic provinces and BC. With the geographic centralization of economic power, small businesses
For details see Harris (1984a, 26, 36). Because data for rural areas was not reported it is impossible to calculate class-speciiic ownership rates for the entire population.
Richard Ham’s 79
Table 6 Class-specific home ownership rates by region, 193 1 and 1979
Percent home owners
Atlantic Quebec Ontario Prairies BC
Owners and managers: 1931 1979
66.8 64.3
47.5 64.2
64.9 80.6
62.8 72.0
60.6 66.7
Middle class: 1931 1979
40.6 72.2
27.0 60.3
49.0 68.5
42.5 62.8
49.1 57.6
Working class: 1931 1979
34.9 60.9
21.2 40.1
44.4 52.9
47.0 60.0
49.6 55.8
Self-employed: 1931 1979
61.5 83.3
44.7 55.3
59.9 61.8
60.5 72.2
52.1 71.4
Other: 1931 1979
44.8 35.1
60.4 52.0
69.2 55.1
64.0 58.6
56.5 47.9
Total: 1931 1979
45.0 64.0
29.7 46.0
52.6 59.0
53.0 62.4
52.1 55.6
~~ ~~
Source: Canada, Census, 1931; and tabulations from the 1979 Survey of Social Change in Canada (Atkinson ef a/, 1982).
have been squeezed more tightly in Ontario and Quebec than in the periphery. Regional differences in class-specific home ownership trends reflect that fact. Here, again, the national picture emerges as a sometimes misleading composite.
2
Its local components can be traced back to the nineteenth century. The urban historians who have examined home ownership have usually provided estimates of class differences. Judging from the evidence they provide, in the late nineteenth century such differences were not large. In Toronto between 1871 and 1899, for example, working-class households were almost as likely to own their own home as were the bourgeoisie (Table 7) (Darroch, 1983a; 1983b).6 An essentially similar situation existed in Hamilton, between 1852 and 1881 (Doucet, 1976; Hershberg et
Urban trends since the nineteenth century
For present purposes Darroch’s classification has been slightly adapted. He does not identify the self-employed since they are very difficult to distinguish on the basis of the assessment rolls.
80 Home ownership and class in modem Canada
Table 7 Home ownership rates by class, Toronto and Montreal, 187 1 - 1979
Percent home owners
Toronto Mon treal 1871' 1899' 1931' 197g3 1931 1979
Owners and managers New middle class Working cless Small businesspeople Other Total (n =)
' Estimated from Derroch, 19836; 1983b. ' Estimated from 1931 Census ' Tabulated from the 1979 Survey of Social Change in Canada ' 'Professionals' only
Non-professional white collar workers, artisans, skilled and semiskilled workers and labourers.
al., 1974; Katz el al., 1982, 133-34), and in Kingston between 1881 and 1901 (Harris et al., 1981). In Toronto, and apparently elsewhere, the important change came in the early decades of the twentieth century. Between 1899 and 1931 all classes in the city experienced a marked increase in home ownership. This was especially true of the owners, managers, and the self-employed, however, and by 1931 marked class differences had developed (Table 7). The great increase in ownership among the more affluent could not have been due primarily to increasing incomes: it strains credulity to suggest that 61% of Toronto's bourgeoisie could afford a home in 1931 but only 20% in 1899. Aspirations, too, must have changed, although the causes are unclear.' Perhaps it was just such a change in aspirations that contributed to the boom of the 1900s. At any rate, it is clear that the early years of this century saw the first emergence of substantial class differences in home ownership.
Since 1931 the evidence suggests that the larger cities have led the country in terms of class-specific trends. Because of the limited sample size of the 1979 survey, reliable estimates are available only for Toronto and Montreal. Nationally, in terms of urban home ownership, the middle class have moved closer to the bourgeoisie, the self-employed to the working class. By 1979 these trends had proceeded to the point where rates among the middle class and the self-employed were about the same (Table 5). In the two major cities, however, the middle class have long overtaken the small business people and a polarization is now developing (Table 7). On the one side, with high ownership rates, are the owners, managers and the middle class. On the other, with low rates, are the self-employed and the working class. The ' Katz el al. (1982, 142) suggest that some affluent households traded off home ownership
for servants.
Richard Harris 8 1
reasons are unknown, although the steady increase in the costs of land and housing, together with the continuing economic decline of small business, probably account for much. The polarization that is occurring in the largest centres is not necessarily an indication of what will happen elsewhere; moreover, the component trends mqht reverse. But even in the light of what is currently known about the role of class and tenure in Canadian politics, its existence does raise some intriguing questions about whether tenure obscures, or reinforces, class conflict.
IV Conclusion
The development of capitalism in Canada has led to the emergence of major class differences in home ownership. In the early decades of the twentieth century the owners and managers, together with the self-employed, drew ahead of other groups. Subsequently, they were followed by the middle class. Lately, with the continued economic decline of the small business people, a new pattern of class polarization in tenure is emerging, particularly in the larger cities: the owners, managers and the middle class, on the one hand, are becoming more clearly differentiated from the working class and the self-employed on the other. The slow increase in urban home ownership may be attributed in large part to a secular rise in incomes. Accordingly, the economic rise of the middle class and the concomitant decline of the petty bourgeoisie, might account for class-specific trends in tenure. But other factors have been at work as well. The ownership boom of the early twentieth century, being concentrated among the more affluent, appear to have reflected a change in aspirations as much as a change in circumstances. Similarly, the persistently low rates of ownership in Quebec, which have affected every class, find no ready economic explanation. For those interested in the history of Canadian development, then, many questions remain unanswered.
Of more general concern is the question of whether these Canadian trends are typical of other countries. This is an issue with theoretical ramifications. The terms of the recent debate about the significance of home ownership have been determined by commentators in Britain, where much concern has been expressed about the supposed effects of increasing ownership upon working class politics. In Canada this increase has not prevented the working class from falling steadily behind the owners, managers and, lately, the middle class. Moreover, in relative terms, and from an initially privileged position, the urban self-employed have lately fared worst of all. The existence of such trends in the relative position of the different classes raises the question of their significance. This question has not been raised in recent theoretical debates and is surely worth considering. The immediate task, however, is to find out exactly what has been happening elsewhere.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Larry Bourne, Michael Harloe, John Holmes, Larry McCann,
82 Home ownership and class in modem Canada
John Miron, Joy Parr, Marion Steele and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft. Special thanks are due to Gerry Pratt for assistance in obtaining tabulations of the IBR data.
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Les recent dtbats theoriques quant i~ I’importance de la propriete immobilitre n’avaient aucun fondement reel. En effet, on ne dispose pour les pays capitalistes avands que de trts peu de donnkes quant aux effets des differences sociales sur I’accession A la propnet6 et nous ignorons plus encore les changements survenus du fait du developpement du capitalisme. Au Canada, de telles differences sociales ont vu le jour au debut du 2O&me sitcle. Les proprietaires et les exploitants, ainsi que tous ceux qui travaillaient A leur compte, se sont distancies des autres groupes. 11s furent rejoints peu aprts par les classes moyennes. Rkemment, un nouveau modtle de polarisation sociale est apparu, particulitrement dans les grandes villes : les propriktaires les cadres et les classes moyennes se distinguent d’une part de la classe ouvrii?re, et d’autre part de ceux qui travaillent A leur compte. L’example du Canada nous amhe A nous demander si des changements semblables sont survenus dans d’autres pays, et si oui, quelles et ont etk les consequences.
Kurzlich abgehaltene Debatten uber die Bedeutung von Haus- und Grundbesitz fanden in Vakuum statt. Uber die hochenhvickelten kapitalistischen bnder ist wenig hinsichtlich Klassenunterschieden in der Frequenz des Hausbesitzes bekannt und sogar noch weniger dariiber, wie sie sich mit der Weiterentwicklung des Kapitalismus geandert hat. In Kanada traten diese Unterschiede Anfang des Jahrhunderts auf. Besitzer und Fuhrungskratfe sowie Freiberufler waren anderen Gruppen voraus. Ihnen folgte die Mittelklasse. Vor kurzem trat ein neues Bild in der Klassenpolarisation der Hausbesitzer auf, besonders in den grokren Stadten: Besitzer, Fiihrungskrafte und der Mittelstand unterscheiden sich einerseits von der Arbeiterklasse unde
86 Home ownership and class in modem Canada
andererseits von den Freiberuflern. Die kanadischen Beweise fiihren zu der Frage, ob ahnliche Wandlungen in anderen Landem aufgetreten sind und falls ja, mit welchen Folgen.
Los recientes debates sobre el significado de la propiedad privada del hogar, han tenido lugar en un vado. Poco se sabe, de ninguno de las paises capitalistas avanzados, en cuanto a las diferencias impuestas por las clases sociales al nhmero de propietarios, y mucho menos la forma en que dicho nhmero ha variado con el avance del capitalismo. En Canada, tales diferencias se hicieron patentes a principios de este siglo. Los propietarios y administradores, junto con 10s autoempleados, se adelantaron a 10s demls grupos. Posteriormente, fueron seguidos por la clase media. Ultimamente, ha surgido un nuevo patr6n de polarizacidn de las clases en la tenencia, especialmente en las cuidadas m h grandes: por un lado, 10s propietarios, administradores y la clase media se estln diferenciando de la clase trabajadora, y por el otro, 10s autoempleados. La evidencia canadiense plantea la pregunta de si han habido cambios similares en otros sitios y, de ser asi, con qu6 consecuencias.
