Exploiting the life course: Life course segmentation in the Brussels co-living sector

Co-living’s strong growth in recent years has attracted increasing attention from the media, the real estate industry and public authorities. We argue that co-living is not radically new in terms of its design and services, which are similar to other ‘beds sectors’, but rather in terms of its target audience, young professionals. To understand this discrepancy between its innovative image and commonplace characteristics, we develop the concept of life course segmentation – a form of class monopoly rent – which highlights the mechanisms underlying the expansion of ‘beds sectors’ and ‘total-life landlordism’. Based on an in-depth qualitative study of the Brussels co-living sector, we demonstrate how the realization of class monopoly rent in co-living relies on the segmentation of the housing market according to the life course, through the promotion of distinct lifestyles associated with specific housing types. Co-living companies take advantage of the constraints facing young professionals in the housing market to discursively position co-living as an exclusive product uniquely suited to addressing these constraints. Recent developments in co-living, now targeting older adults, further this process of age segmentation by allowing the sector to extend its potential customer base while maintaining high prices thanks to the creation of age-specific class monopoly rents. This case demonstrates how the real estate industry exploits the life course in pursuit of rent. Total-life landlords not only seek to capture rents across the life course but also seek to extract greater rent from each life course stage by deepening the segmentation between them.