Young People Are Putting Off Having Children Because They Don’t Own Houses

On this day, the most ‘romantic’ day of the year, a new study conducted by the housing charity Shelter reveals just how much the housing crisis is affecting the personal lives of young people today.

We know from the most recent English Housing Survey that there has been a huge surge in the number of renters across Britain in the last ten years. To be exact, the number of households that are privately renting has risen by 74% since 2007.

The figures speak for themselves, we are fast becoming a nation of renters and the impact this is having on the decisions young people are making about their futures. Shelter’s research has found that millennial private renters aged between 25 and 34 are putting off starting families of their own because of the fact that they don’t own their own home.

Shelter’s data shows that the number of coupes renting has soared by 115% over the past decade while the number who own their own home with a mortgage has plummeted. Shelter say this is a direct consequence of rising house prices which have outpaced earnings across the country.

Anyone who rents or has ever rented privately in this country will know that expense isn’t the only downside. Instability is a serious problem. How can you plan a future when you don’t know whether your rent will go up beyond what you can afford next year, your landlord will suddenly decide to sell or kick you out on a whim? Is it any wonder that young people who live in such unpredictable conditions are delaying life-changing decisions like having children?

Speaking to The Debrief, Polly Neate, Shelter’s Chief Executive said that it’s ‘heart-breaking that so many young couples are putting their lives on hold simply because they can’t offer a stable life to a child in a privately rented home’.

Neate added that this emerging trend is a direct consequence of ‘short, unstable contracts and the high cost of renting’ which are combining to ‘mean that many private renters simply don’t have the security they need to settle down and start a family’. Despite the obvious growth in the number of people who rent as opposed to own their own home, the government has been fairly slow on the uptake when it comes to introducing new legislation which will increase stability for renters. Neat said ‘the government must build more genuinely affordable homes for rent and give people stronger rights – so they can build a brighter future for them and their loved ones’.

In an attempt to show that they are on the side of renters (and animal welfare), today the Labour Party announced that if they were in government they would do more to make sure that those who do not own their own home are not forced to give up their pets when they move. They have cited fears that animal shelters are seeing a rise in the number of abandoned cats and dogs as a key reason for this policy.

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As things stand, it is very common for landlords to deny tenants the right to keep pets in their properties. It is also not unusual for those who are on the property ladder but as leasehold home owners to find that the contract they signed with their freeholder states that they are prohibited from keeping a pet despite the fact that they technically own their home.

Whether their ‘pets for renters policy’ would be enough to convince young voters that Labour are on their side remains to be seen. What’s certain, however, is that traditional home ownership is increasingly out of reach for young people which means that they simply cannot justify or afford to have children (or get a doggo) when they would otherwise like to.

Follow Vicky on Twitter @Victoria_Spratt

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.