Half the UK public think a key reason more young adults today cannot afford to buy their own home is they spend too much of their income on things like takeaway coffees and food, mobile phones, subscription services like Netflix and holidays abroad, according to a new study.
In reality, these are minor factors given the huge increases in house prices and required deposits, while wages have stagnated.
As one recent report has shown, the typical first-time buyer house price-to-earnings ratio has almost doubled since the 1990s, and the average first-time buyer deposit has tripled from 5% of the value of the property in 1989 to 15% in 2019.1
The research, by the Policy Institute and Institute of Gerontology at King’s College London, also finds that young adults themselves are more likely to agree than disagree that spending on such items and services is a key reason for their failure to get on the housing ladder. For example, 48% of Millennials agree with this view, compared with 33% who disagree, and there is a similar split among members of Gen Z (43% vs 33%).
But at the same time, there is a high level of recognition among the public that economic factors are also preventing young people from buying a home, with three in four agreeing the key reasons young adults today cannot afford to buy their own home are things like the increase in house prices, stricter lending rules and low wage growth.
Researchers found that the public are three times as likely to say that younger workers are less , rather than more motivated and hardworking than older workers.
This is the most common view across all generations surveyed, except Gen Z, 42% of whom say younger workers are more motivated, compared with 28% who say less.
But when older people think back to when they themselves were young, they are less likely to see younger workers back then as lazy. 29% of those aged 30 and above say that, when they first began their careers, younger employees were less motivated and hardworking than older employees – lower than the 46% of the public as a whole who think the same about younger workers today.
Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said:
“The suggestion that the huge challenges young people face in buying their own home can be solved by skipping fancy coffees and Netflix entirely misses the point – but it’s still believed by half the public. That so many think it’s the case will be partly because it’s so often repeated by commentators, which recently included Kirstie Allsopp.
“But it also reflects our general tendency to think bad of today’s young people. Throughout history, people always think the current youth are the worst ever, as seen in the half of people who agree with a quote, often attributed to Socrates back in 400 BC, berating young people for their love of luxury, gossip and bad manners.
“We also tend to think of young people as lazy, with half of people again saying they are less motivated at work than older people. But we think better of young people from our own youth: only 29% think young people were less motivated than older workers when we ourselves were young.
“Part of the reason for our clichéd view of young people will be that we now live much more separately than in the past, with young people more concentrated in cities and older people in smaller towns and villages. Most of the public correctly identify that this is the reality now – but 56% of us also think this has always been the case, when it’s actually a relatively recent trend, starting in the 1990s.
“Generational labels, like Baby Boomers and Millennials, is also part of the problem, as there are so many stereotypes attached to each. The public do, however, recognise this – with over half saying the labels are about as useful – or useless – as star signs.”
