Migrants Taking the Blame for Housing Issues: Dutch Election Edition
Dutch elections begin in 3 days, and the talking points around immigration and housing have hit a fever pitch this past week. In what is now becoming pretty standard fare, some politicians are blaming immigration for rising rents and lack of availability in housing. Wilders and the far right PVV are leading the charge on this, copying counterparts in America, Canada, and Denmark. They'll be far from the last to do so.
Recent studies in Denmark and Canada have linked immigration to an ~11% uptick in prices, and while the authors of both papers have underscored housing supply as the primary cause of the housing crisis, these claims have mostly fallen on deaf ears (dovetails with my previous post on MPI's assessment that migration researchers feel largely unable to affect policy).
Scapegoating immigration is misguided, but the political payoff is simply too attractive. Preying on economic anxiety and tapping into generational housing frustrations delivers disproportionate electoral gains. Politicians will continue weaponizing this until the ROI flattens, and that's going to take some time in my opinion.
While the Netherlands is actually somewhat concrete about its ambitions to build affordable housing, having committed to 100,000 units a year through 2030, the current housing shortage is over 400,000. To boot they only hit 80% of their aspirational build rate last year. Meaning even if the Dutch completely shut down borders starting tomorrow, as in absolutely 0 new migrants, it would still take a half decade just to cover the existing shortfall.
Cutting off all migration would be generational suicide, however, as the government has set a target for 19MM - 20MM total population by 2050 (currently 18MM) to "maintain existing living standards and care for its aging population." As with many other developed countries, the Netherlands is facing a stark drop-off in working age people, and it needs to get ahead of the labor shortages, lost tax revenue, and stagnation that will follow without meaningful population growth. Immigrants are also overrepresented in construction and trades, meaning any meaningful restriction in migration is likely to worsen the very crisis it's being blamed for.