Parental background and young adults’ housing outcomes in England and Wales, Rory Coulter SLLS Annual Conference, Dublin, 19/10/2015

Much debate about structural changes in housing Considerable focus on young adults Falling ownership and greater private renting Boomerang children, sharing and ‘doubling up’ Concern about social implications of trends Living conditions, security and mobility Costs and wealth (£3.5tn in property) Often focus on cohort inequalities Housing and young people Source: CLG/NatCen analysis of the English Housing Survey (2015)

Trends also matter for social mobility ‘Linked lives’ of parents and children Evidence growing difficulty of accessing ownership increasing importance of parental assistance Fear lifting ownership out of reach for young people who cannot draw on parental help Intergenerational transmission of (dis)advantage in housing system deepening over time Housing and social mobility Source: National Housing Federation (2014), based on CML data

RQ: How is parental housing tenure associated with young adults’ housing outcomes aged 30-34, and has this association changed over time? Compare parents who owned with social tenants Begin with bivariate analysis then models Test tenure effects in each cohort after controlling for: (i) life course development (family, education, work etc) (ii) housing market conditions (prices, tenure mix) (iii) other parental attributes (class, family structure) Research question

Data and methods ONS Longitudinal Study % sample of population of England and Wales Link parental attributes aged to housing ‘outcome’ aged Three cohorts of young adults CohortBirth yearsTrackedN 1. Baby Boomers (BB)1956-’611971, 1981, Post Boomers (PB)1966-’711981, 1991, Generation X (GX)1976-’811991, 2001,

Dependent variable (aged 30-34) Dependent variable has four categories: (a)owner-occupation (b)social tenancy (LA or HA) (c)private tenancy (d)not in an independent household (parental home (~2/3) or sharing with other adults (~1/3)) All analyses subdivided by gender

Cohort trends in housing outcomes

Bivariate effects of parental tenancy: ORs Caution! Main interest is cohort patterns within panels

Explanations for changing odds ratios? 1. Means and opportunityFamily support increasingly necessary for entering home ownership, and parents who own tend to have access to greater resources (from equity and work) 2. Changing composition of social tenants Social renters became an increasingly disadvantaged group as homeownership expanded (Right to Buy) 3. Changes in young people’s educational and working lives Children from less advantaged backgrounds do less well in education and work, and how family background shapes these attainments may have changed over time Examine using six multinomial models (by cohort*gender) Compare Average Marginal Effect (AME) of parental social tenancy (ref=homeownership) after controls for life course development, housing market and other parental variables

AME of parental social tenancy (ref=own)

Conclusions Clear intergenerational associations in housing system Matters for social mobility, wealth and housing conditions Negative links between parental tenancy and child ownership appears to have increased over the cohorts BUT trend disappears after controlling for differences in life courses, housing markets and parental attributes Emerging trend of tenant children living in PRS Key message is persistence of tenure effects Important to remember that disadvantage is cumulative

Acknowledgements This research is supported by an Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leaders award [ES/L /1]. Additional financial support has been provided by the Isaac Newton Trust. The permission of the Office for National Statistics to use the Longitudinal Study is gratefully acknowledged, as is the help provided by staff of the Centre for Longitudinal Study Information & User Support (CeLSIUS). CeLSIUS is supported by the ESRC Census of Population Programme under project ES/K000365/1. I bear sole responsibility for all analyses and interpretations of the data. Census output is Crown copyright and is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.