Parental background and young adults’ housing outcomes Rory Coulter, University of Cambridge (rcc46@cam.ac.uk) Population Change and Housing across the Life Course University of St Andrews, 16/06/15

Introduction Young adults’ housing a theme in election campaigns Help to Buy ISAs in the 2015 Budget Ed Miliband’s ‘Venezuelan style’ rent controls Idea of Generation Rent gaining purchase as increasing concentration of young HH in PRS Also boomerang children, parental safety nets… Linked to various factors: Economics of owning and renting Changing life courses

Introduction Key issue is implication of trends for current and future inequalities Much focus on inequalities between cohorts However, increasing concern about intergenerational transmission of (dis)advantage in housing Eg. parental assistance thought to be increasingly significant for transitions to owner-occupation

Introduction How are young adults’ housing outcomes influenced by the attributes of their parents, and have these effects changed over time? Focus on parental class and tenure effects Examine role of changing life courses and contextual conditions (house prices, tenure mix, unemployment) Take ‘social mobility’ approach, concentrating on absolute and relative odds of housing outcomes

Data and methods ONS Longitudinal Study 1971-2011 1% sample of population of England and Wales Link parental attributes aged 10-14 to housing ‘outcome’ aged 30-34 Three cohorts of young adults Cohort Birth years Tracked 1. Baby Boomers (BB) 1956-1961 1971, 1981, 1991 2. Post Boomers (PB) 1966-1971 1981, 1991, 2001 3. Generation X (GX) 1976-1981 1991, 2001, 2011

Data and methods Dependent variable has four categories: owner-occupation social tenancy (LA or HA) private tenancy sharing the dwelling Parental class coded as NS-SeC (Sturgis & Buscha) Compare NS-SeC 1-2 with 5-7 Bivariate analysis of odds and ORs of each outcome, then multinomial models

Results I: Odds Source: ONS LS (own analysis).

Results I: Odds Source: ONS LS (own analysis).

Results I: Odds Source: ONS LS (own analysis).

Results I: Odds Source: ONS LS (own analysis).

Results I: Odds Source: ONS LS (own analysis).

Results I: Odds Source: ONS LS (own analysis).

Results 3: Average Marginal Effects (Men) Variables Baby Boomers Post Boomers Generation X OO ST SH Parent NS-SeC 5-7 (ref=1-2) -0.038 0.025 0.012 -0.035 0.017 0.029 -0.029 0.021 Parent s.tenant (ref=owner) -0.054 0.051 0.011 -0.077 0.018 -0.085 -0.006 Higher degree (ref=no degree) 0.085 -0.058 -0.012 0.060 -0.046 -0.013 -0.033 -0.032 NS-SeC 5-7 (ref=1-2) -0.188 0.117 0.056 -0.136 0.062 0.057 -0.147 0.070 Regional house price (£10,000) -0.014 0.008 0.005 0.002 0.004 -0.003 0.001 Source: ONS LS (own analysis). Notes: Bold indicates p<0.05.

Results 3: Average Marginal Effects (Women) Variables Baby Boomers Post Boomers Generation X OO ST SH Parent NS-SeC 5-7 (ref= 1-2) -0.028 0.030 0.013 -0.046 0.034 0.017 -0.048 0.022 0.037 Parent s.tenant (ref=owner) -0.065 0.050 0.011 -0.081 0.078 0.005 -0.096 0.070 -0.008 Higher degree (ref=no degree) 0.081 -0.078 0.002 0.038 -0.039 -0.007 0.093 -0.067 -0.010 NS-SeC 5-7 (ref=1-2) -0.165 0.136 0.031 -0.137 0.096 0.029 -0.146 0.073 0.027 Regional house price (£10,000) -0.019 0.003 -0.005 0.004 0.001 Source: ONS LS (own analysis). Notes: Bold indicates p<0.05.

Conclusions Housing position aged 30-34 associated with parental class and tenure position in all cohorts Lower ownership, higher renting/sharing (for men) if parent(s) tenants or with a less advantaged class position Net of life course trajectories and contextual variables Stronger negative association between parental tenancy and ownership in more recent cohorts Key issue is timing: Do patterns persist or ‘wear off’? Possible role of unobserved parental factors potentially testable with panel data

Acknowledgements This research is supported by an Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leaders award [ES/L0094981/1]. 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.

Acknowledgements The derivation of 1971 and 1981 NS-SEC & Goldthorpe classes is provided in Bukodi and Neuburger (2009) “Data Note. Job and occupational histories for the NSHD 1946 Birth Cohort” as part of the ESRC Gender Network Grant, Project 1 ‘Changing occupational careers of men and women’, Reference: RES-225-25-2001. The code was kindly provided by Erzsebet Bukodi and adapted for use in the LS by Franz Buscha and Patrick Sturgis as part of the ESRC grant ‘Inter-cohort Trends in Intergenerational Mobility in England and Wales: income, status, and class (InTIME)’ [ES/K003259/1].