Owners, renters, and mortgage holders: housing tenure and voting behaviour

This study examines the relationships between housing tenure and party preferences. We advance existing scholarship on patrimonial economic voting by considering mortgage holders as a separate group; examining the moderating role of macro-level changes in housing affordability; and examining an under-researched country context (Australia). Our analyses rely on unique longitudinal data from the Australian Election Study spanning over 25 years (1996–2022) and reveal that outright owners are more likely to vote for centre-right parties than mortgage holders, who are in turn more likely to vote for centre-right parties than renters. These associations are both statistically significant and substantial in magnitude. Further, some relationships have become progressively and significantly more pronounced since the mid-2010s, with substantially fewer renters voting for Australia’s main centre-right party and substantially more voting for The Greens. These findings bear important implications for future socio-political trends and future research on voting behaviour.