Housing is unaffordable for women in every English region - Women's Budget Group

[stumbledin]

For many women finding somewhere to call home can influence so many decisions. What type of work you would do, staying in a relationship (entering a relationship), having children.

This is a recent report from the Women's Budget Group.
wbg.org.uk/media/press-releases/exclusive-data-housing-is-unaffordable-for-women-in-every-english-region/

And they also produced this report last year (unfortunate use of gender in the title!) wbg.org.uk/analysis/2018-wbg-briefing-housing-and-gender/

And if anyone is interested quite a long thread on telly addicts following the first episode of The Council House Scandal www.mumsnet.com/Talk/telly_addicts/3647056-George-Clarkes-Council-House-Scandal

I was puzzled by the title. Obviously plenty of women DO own properties.
On reading the link, they should more accurately be saying that “women on female median salary” can not afford to buy.
Therefore, presumably the 50% of women above the median actually CAN.
But it’s a much less exciting headline to say that half of all women can afford a mortgage on their own!

There also seems to be no account taken of the fact that many women will buy with a partner, and have two salaries to fund it. Or that the women below median wage are more likely to be mothers doing part time work, with a DH on a better salary anyway.
I think it’s quite encouraging news that half the female population can be home owners. It certainly wasn’t so when I was young, before the Equal Pay Act.

@stumbledin Hope its ok to copy and paste this Saves me typing it all out again.

Can we talk about an aspect of social housing that never gets discussed. The sexism. In 1991 (back in the mists of time before i met DH when i was 18 and still living with my parents) i went with a friend to the local council office who needed to find a flat. She was single. I still remember what was said to her all these years later. "Im sorry but there arent many available at the moment if you had a baby things would be different but we cant help you at the moment.

I met DH in 1992 and we moved into a small bedsit and lived there for two years and 3 months before we moved to where we are now.....

Single men WERE more likely to be housed than single women or couples (all this is without children) It was assumed that women would meet a man and move in with him. (this obvs meant a higher risk of abuse.

The final straw was when my best friends ex beat her yet again She finally gave him the boot and this violent druggie was rehoused within THREE DAYS. While women were being told Sorry we cant help unless you have a child.

We had an interview for a flat and we attended and towards the end of the interview i asked how likely it was we would get allocated a flat She said it could be a while. I brought up my friends ex and she said it was sooner for him because he was "vulnerable" Yep so vulnerable that he beat up a subsequent partner so badly she lost their baby. She had moved in with him because she had no other choice.

Anyway we did get offered a flat which is still the same one bedroom flat we are in now 25 years later.

Why? Because im childfree by choice and we have always been low income.

So we are still where we are because i havent reproduced. Im not moaning about it Just stating a fact.

I will point out though that if more lower income couples made the same choice as us there would be even less one bedroom places becoming available.

Therefore, presumably the 50% of women above the median actually CAN.

That's not quite how medians work - you line up all the salaries, and it's the number in the middle - it doesn't mean that 50% of people earn more for example:

1,1,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,100

The median is 5. Only one number is bigger than 5.

OP That report is shocking.

Babdoc
Therefore, presumably the 50% of women above the median actually CAN.
Median salary isn't the same as average salary. It's the middle between highest salary and lowest their could be far more below than above.
Haven't actually read articles though. Median is generally a better measure than average I think.

Actually might be wrong there. Will have to look at more closely.

Whether you use mean, mode or median, it’s still a method of calculating an average - it’s therefore nonsense to say that no single women can afford to buy houses in any region of England. There will be women above the median, just as there are above the mean - there may or may not be relatively more of them.
As I say, when I was young, women weren’t even allowed mortgages without a male guarantor, and there were very few even with - so I think we’re making progress.

Thank you, this issue is the crux of everything I believe. Women staying in abusive marriages, women turning to prostitution, all of it relates to this issue

Am puzzled by some of the responses. The report shows that women are less able than men to afford housing whether renting or buying:

^ For renters
There is no region in England where the average home to rent is affordable for a woman on median earnings.[1]
The average home to rent is affordable for men on median earnings in every region except London and the South East.
Across England as a whole average rents take 43% of women’s median earnings and 28% of men’s.

When buying a house
Women need over 12 times their annual salaries to be able to buy a home in England, while men need just over eight times.
The worst regions in housing buying affordability for women (and men) are London and the South East, where women need nearly 18 times and 16 times their annual earnings to afford a house (respectively).
The regions with the widest gap in affordability between women and men are the South East and the East. This is where the gender pay gap (as measured by gross annual earnings of full time and part time workers) is the largest. ^

Surely no one thinks that even if things have improved for women it is okay that they are still less economically independent than men?

Not forgetting how many women probably go into a marriage or civil partnership because the reality of never being in a secure home outweighs being financially insecure as a single woman.

Not forgetting that it is women who are or become single mums for whatever treatment who too often end up in sub strandard accomodation, with their children isolated from family networks, and often having to move schools.

You can bet if more men were left in this situation more attention would be paid to provide safe, secure housing to women whatever their income level.

Suffragettes and Women's Liberationists didn't fight for women to always be behind men.

Meant to add this link in my post focuse15.org/about/

I feel a little mixed about this. From the perspective of how women are served obviously it's a problem.

But what is the problem from a big picture perspective? For one thing, what it's saying I think is that there is a group of people, men and women, who can't afford a mortgage. Is this a problem or do we expect that? If we want more people in homes of their own, it's a low income problem and it should be looked at that way. You're not less able to buy a home because you are a poor man rather than a poor women. We might also ask if we want most people to own homes or would perhaps like to improve rental arrangements, or something else.

The question of why women have less income than men is somewhat different and perhaps ought to be addressed on its own. Looking at their numbers I'd say it seems to include more women non-working or in part time work. We might ask if these are women who have kids and partners, which is a somewhat different spin than if they are single, or single moms. I expect a mix but I generally think families with two parents make decisions about housing and employment as a unit and we shouldn't expect them to do otherwise, so it can give an inaccurate impression of the situation.

Goosefoot

The report is saying that even aspiring to rent is not affordable for women.

It takes 43% of their income.

Guidelines are for a sustainable level of living is that housing costs ie rent should not be more than 1/3 of your income.

Lack of access to housing put women in jeopardy. There is the increasing scandal of sex for rent. And there is no shame from the men offering it. And even though there was an outcry so that ads like this would not be accepted, you can bet it is still going on. www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-bristol-45470699/sex-for-rent-offered-by-landlords

And as has been said in the thread about radical feminism and marriage, how many women go into and remain in relationships because they have either experienced or come close to experiencing homelessness. It has the most massive impact on anyone's sense of well being. www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/domestic-violence-victims-struggling-to-access-housing-support-report-finds-60308

And even on the streets women are subject to sexual violence. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/homeless-women-abusive-dangerous-relationships-protection-rough-sleeping-a8672316.html

The report OP linked to says;
''Rising house prices and the gender pay gap means that there is no English region where a single woman on median earnings can afford to rent or buy an averagely priced house according to a new report from the Women’s Budget Group and Women’s Housing Forum.''
wbg.org.uk/media/press-releases/exclusive-data-housing-is-unaffordable-for-women-in-every-english-region/

Austerity has had a disproportionate impact on women.
www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Development/IEDebt/WomenAusterity/WBG.pdf

From LSE:
The gendered impact of austerity: Cuts are widening the poverty gap between women and men
blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/gendered-impacts-of-austerity-cuts/

This isn't about not being able to afford a mortgage; its about not being able to afford housing.

Housing is a fundamental necessity. I'm not sure I understand the nit picking with this. Its part of the Caroline Criado-Perez thesis of data bias.
It is unequal for women to be less able to afford housing and in a fair system it should be addressed.
The UN report cited research carried out by the Women’s Budget Group together with the Runnymede Trust which showed that tax and benefit changes have hit the poorest hardest, women harder than men, and black and minority women hardest of all. We also found disabled lone mothers with a disabled child stand to lose over £10,000 a year on average, nearly a third of their income.

At the same time, local authorities have seen a 49% cut to their funding from central government, while demand for public services is rising. This has created a crisis in public services and hits women hardest because we use public services more than men, are more likely to work in the public sector and more likely to have to increase unpaid work when public services disappear.

As the UN report says, ‘it should shock the conscience that since 2011, life expectancy has stalled for women in the most deprived half of English communities, and actually fallen for women in the poorest 20 per cent of the population.’
Women's economic position has been significantly hit.

This isn't about not being able to afford a mortgage; its about not being able to afford housing

THIS! i was beginning to think id fallen down some kind of rabbit hole there.

I haven't rtft but I can say that I had to move 4 times with 4 kids from rented accommodation to rented accommodation whilst my stbexh camped out in the fmh for 3 years. And during that time I was advised to go on uc. Oh god the 6 week wait, the benefit cap...

And yes HelenaD exactly.

The uc fully screws women over in so many ways.

For example, we are more likely to do seasonal work. This means that if you earn 1200 in a year over two months you lose shitloads of money. If you earn 1200 over a year you get to keep it.

I did three months as a support teacher once: they paid it at all the end of three months. I lost most of it as they claimed back 67% after the first 197. It is actually only 63% these days but still.

And basically, most of the changes affect women, particularly single mothers and their CHILDREN.

Why might a mother be single?
a) partner was a control freak
b) partner buggered off
c) ...

And butteryellow, when you are considering a normal distribution, then, yes, the median is equal to the mean.

And butteryellow, when you are considering a normal distribution, then, yes, the median is equal to the mean.

Yes, but I don't think that pay is normally distributed.

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/analysisofthedistributionofearningsacrosstheukusingashedata/2016#earnings-distribution-by-gender

Distinct lack of bell curves!

Placemarking.

This is the image from that link, I hope you can see this clearly.

I think there are two separate issues here - gender pay gap and women generally having less financial resources than men and the high cost of housing (which affects everyone but especially poorer people as women are more likely to be). Our government should be doing something about both but isn’t.

I think women need al sorts of things to help improve their financial lot. Better and more affordable childcare, changes in workplace culture and a child maintenance service that is fit for purpose. We also need a major program of building social housing. But again, we need a government that cares about women and the poor.

As for all of the pp with the “why someone might be a single mum” - what difference does that make? Are we really still judging women for being single parents unless they have an “acceptable” reason?

I generally think families with two parents make decisions about housing and employment as a unit and we shouldn't expect them to do otherwise

Hmm. I can think of 3 female friends off the top of my head where childcare (and so employment)was agreed as a couple to be shared, and after mat leave. . Wasn't.

All self employed . Basically the men just carried on accepting work so the women couldn't accept work they were offered . When it comes to neglecting small children women will almost always blink first and pick up the slack.
Anecdote obvs, but let's face it, the whole "we made the decision as a family for me to go pt" has a backdrop of childcare going disproportionately to women-and NOT always by free choice.
Regarding the assumption women will live with a man and get her housing needs met that way; when I got a letter from tax credits a couple of years ago asking me if I had a partner (which would affect my payments) I called them to ask for clarification. Apparently any man in your life who you see regularly and have sex with counts-whether you share money or not. "If people see you as a couple" could be enough to decide you are no longer a lone parent and cut your money off. If they decided that my boyfriend was my partner I would have to move in with him to survive-with my children, which in itself is a huge safeguarding worry (although clearly not for thd government ).