to think that the norm of having a 2 working parent household, is fairly responisble for making housing cost so high

[carriedaxmaspud]

fair enough if both parent swant to work, its their choice, we are all differnt and want to do different things,
but seems to me that now the norm is for both parents to work, thats whats made house prices and rents go through the roof

i mean ther prices can only go up to what people can afford, so if buting a house was based on one persons wage not 2, the house prices would never have reached the outrageous prices they have.

Is that realistically related to income? Or the sexist assumption that a woman's salary doesn't "count" as she is only doing it for pin money and will stop when they have children?

Well - like it or not it certainly wouldn't be realistic for banks to assume a couple's disposable income would remain static after having children. Either one of them would cut back on hours, or they would have to fund childcare. Either way, less cash than before.

Carrie - you are absolutely right, house prices have always been linked to earnings and now a joint income has become the norm, they are linked to those earnings. It's pointless other posters claiming it's anti-feminist to say so because it's simple economics. I am a feminist. But it doesn't change the basic fact that double-earning households have led to higher house prices - or at very least, are part of the reason the bubble was sustained for as long as it was.

Sorry - para 1 should have been in quotes

On your second point carrie, yes that creates a double whammy for first-time buyers. If they were priced out, logically no-one would want to buy one-bedroomed flats. But divorcees (and companies, and landlords) have stepped in to fill the gap, so there's no need for the price to fall.

It is anti-feminist to say that women going out to work is the cause of high house prices. Its a lot more complicated than that, which is fairly obvious.
This kind of nonsense is just scape-goating. Just like earlier in the week with the thread on feminism causing obesity. And divorce, and the breakdown of the nuclear family, and the reason its all gone to hell in handbasket. Find something else to pin the woes of the world on will you? Its naive and silly.

I think it is down to greed - greedy builders, greedy landlords, greedy sellers and greedy lenders.

Def a biiig factor.

I have always thought that the drive for equal pay and to get women into work has has a negative result on house prices. Couple this with the fact that banks are willing to lend more and more money and the housing market explodes.
At least when the Little Woman's pin money wasn't taken into accout the cost of housing was relative to one salary, making it easy for women to stay at home after they have a baby. Now we have no choice but to work because the inflated cost of housing means you have to take two full salaries into account when you purchase a house - and then have a dilemma when Baby 1 arrives.

I have long thought that equality of wages actually has done us no favours in terms of housing cost

I would have thought that it was the rising cost of houses that has forced both parents out to work, not the other way round.

It is supply and demand and as more families split up and more people chose to live alone then this is what forces prices up.

we should have stayed barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen of our cheap houses then.
That would have been much better.

bonnie, stop being silly thats not what i'm saying and you know it

im just wondering if this nrom has actually really helped us.

sally thats just what i mean, even if both parents work, there still childcare to pay, often the cost of 1 ft wage or nearly there.
which is why morgages should have been worked out bases on one salary.

BonniePrinceBilly, you seem to be working from the assumption that the majority of working women are in some thrilling, satisfying "career".

Look at the jobs that are out there. Do you really think that sitting on Tesco's checkout for 20 hours a week while putting your child into care just to pay the bills serves some sort of feminist agenda ?

There is not one mother in my acquaintance that works in a very exciting job that she wouldn't rather give up if she could afford to do so - and I work in a relatively well paid sector. I'm sure the millions of women that work in unskilled jobs would far rather be at home with their children.

A lot of families do have more money available for housing that in the past, for many reasons:

• more women working
• better wages for women
• death of house-owning parents results in large chunks of money being passed down
• lower food/clothing costs than in the past
• not least, credit. When DH and I bought 12 years ago we only got 2.5x joint income. Over the years this went up to 5x income in some cases.

Families have not benefitted equally from the increase in income, but enough have. Houses sell for what people can afford.

surely the maths doesn't work out for it being mainly because of families having 2 incomes.

families with 2 incomes still don't have twice the disposable income, because of the costs of childcare. And the cost of housing in relation to income has more than doubled since 1970 anyway, hasn't it?

I don't think two incomes are relevant. If house prices were based on one income then affordability would be (almost) the same. What I mean is, even if house prices were lower, the fact that your income was also lower would mean you were no better off.

But why? Surely it stands to reason that 2 salaries should have more buying power than 1? How would that be fair then if one persons (generally the womans) salary was deemed irrelevant.

I don't agree that its a large factor when there are so many more things that have affected house prices. The same thing has happened, and far worse sometimes, in countries that have much lower rates of 2 income households.

And yes, I would rather be pregnant and barefoot in my kitchen right now than having to work 27 hours a week in a job where I have to deal with people that are often angry, abusive or hysterical.

and I have no assumptions at all about thrilling careers, no woman I know has one, thats not reality for most of us. And how is that relevant anyway? Its not about a feminist agenda, its about not being ignored and sidelined.

It's simple economics really. The more money people have, the more they spend.

So yes, 2 working parents have pushed prices up as they have more disposable income. The law of supply & demand therefore dictates prices rise. But that's not by any means the only reason.

Other factor's such as a very generous benefits system, such as housing benefits, tax credits etc, all have contributed to rising housing costs.

As have large numbers of immigrants primarily in the south east.

Outside of a small number of specialist industries eg financial services, wages haven't increased in real terms since 1973.In many industries, wages have actually declined (logistics being one example I can think of). And there are more demands on those wages - more consumer goods, increased housing costs, general inflation, contraction of welfare state. The growing number of women working, combined with increased ease of credit, has masked the full impact of this for many households. Had fewer women worked more people would have felt it harder, but this doesn't mean that women working CAUSED the cumulative problem.

In terms of whether the "norm" of women working has "helped us" it depends what you view as important. I would argue that it has helped a great many women find a wider identity and more outlets for their energies and that has been a social good.

YABU

Lots of people buy before having children anyway so would have two salaries anyway. Also if they were only able to lend based on the highest salary x 3 then people would just of either done self cert mortgages and lied about the income, or had much more disposable income making other things go up in price or paid off their mortgage in record time and bought second homes, we would have still had the buy to let market aswel.

Iheart, you are right. In the 70s, my dad worked (mum a SAHM) and he earned a similar wage bracket to DH now. However, in the 70's my dad's pay bought us a detatched house and they had 4 kids. We are considerably poorer than they were and live in an ex council house.

While I agree that the move twoards two-income families and availability of credit have had a huge effect, one of the biggest impacts on house prices that often goes unmentioned is the removal of the tax credit on dividends from pension funds in 1997.

The effect of the removal of the credit (worth £20 for every £80 in dividends received), had a huge effect on pension funds (as just about everyone knows), but has had a knock-on effect on property prices. By lowering the return on shares (which are generally more risky than property), it encouraged investment in property (which had a lower return, but was a safer investment). If you look at most pension funds today compared to pre-1997, one of the striking differences is how much property is invested in now, compared to 1997.

Having a number of huge institutional investors entering the property market has had a massive impact. Have a look at house price graphs and see the massive jump from 1997 onwards here. House prices increased by 2.67x from 1980-1995, but by 10.67x from 1995-2010.

Funnily enough that is what MIL says. But she's nearly 80 so she can be forgiven.

Increased demand has also contributed. More smaller households. Not enough social housing.

Yes house price inflation is totally as a consequence of women working outside the home. Nowt to do with the privatisation of social housing, the growth of home ownership as something attainable / desired by income brackets that would previously rent, bank and building society lending policies, the sell-off of council houses, the influx of buy-to-let property investors into the market during the past twenty years, the influx of very high income households into the central London property market and the knock on effect on south east land value, the rise of single income households, a general shortage of housing and the rise of second home ownership.

Women working outside the home is the cause of house prices. Because as we know from studying history, no woman or mother worked outside the home or had a career before that pesky Germaine Greer came along.

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