Non-discrimination in private rental housing as a means to promote workers’ mobility and equal treatment

Abstract

Discrimination in housing is a pervasive phenomenon throughout Europe, creating significative obstacles to worker’s mobility and a truly free labor market. Despite the enhancement legal protection against discrimination in housing has seen in the past twenty years, legal policies and application of anti-discrimination provisions in practice are highly challenging. Among other difficulties, commonly shared with labor law, such as the burden of proof, prohibition of discrimination in tenancy contracting poses the complex question of where to set a line of exemption to adequately preserve individual choice, social peace, and policy efficiency. Shall prohibition be limited to public announced tenancies? What relevance shall the «protection of private and family life» have in this context?