The ups and downs of the property market and lack of affordable housing is a national obsession. Over the years the problems caused by poor living conditions - families who are homeless because they cannot afford escalating rents and are on council waiting lists, and those living on deprived estates - have been well documented. But not as publicised are the negative effects that housing unaffordability can have on those who are already on the 'property ladder' and the direct impact this has on the well-being of the children in these households.
Prices may be starting to fall but housing is still a long way off being affordable for many families. Peter Ambrose, visiting professor in housing studies at the Health and Social Policy Research Centre, Brighton University, says of high house prices, 'Thirty per cent of the population are not benefiting because they are not homeowners. But then many owners are also not gaining in any real way, because of the stupid rises in paper values of property are not translated into real gains where you are buying and selling in the same market.
'The only benefit is when you exit the system, and that only tends to happen when someone dies. Studies have shown that there is very little financial benefit in a lifetime from the cost of owner-occupancy compared with renting.'
Getting into debt
Changes in mortgage lending practices have enabled people to continue buying homes, despite the vast rises in property prices (see box). The earnings of two people are increasingly taken into consideration when calculating loans, as well as lengthening repayment periods. Both partners in the majority of couples now have to work to be able to maintain mortgage repayments.
Professor Ambrose attributes this to a sharp rise over the past ten years in the average age of mothers having a first child. He believes people are delaying having children because they cannot afford to start a family. 'It is OK that a lot more older women are having children, except that later births produce a higher risk of complications. One outcome of that is increasing costs to the NHS.' Women over 35 years old, especially those having fertility treatments, are also more likely to have multiple births, automatically medically classed as 'high risk'. There is also an increased chance that children born to older mothers can have chromosomal abnormalities.
The need for both parents to work has resulted in increasingly more children in full childcare. According to some researchers, spending long hours in daycare can have an adverse effect on children's behaviour. Professor Jay Belsky, director of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues at Birkbeck College, warns that families with young children should not be 'economically coerced' into using childcare. He wants the Government to make tax breaks available to families to use as they wish (News, 10 January).
Professor Ambrose says, 'I am sure the quality of childcare is excellent in most cases, but evidence seems to show that many parents would prefer to be spending more of their time caring for their children themselves but are precluded from doing so, and forced into a life of juggling commitments, by the obligation to work to pay the mortgage or very high rent.'
The demands of raising children and working full-time, topped by financial anxieties, can leave parents stressed or depressed, with a knock-on effect on their children. Professor Ambrose says, 'For my recent research I interviewed 55 households in south-east England. These households were not among the poor, they were in the top half of income distribution. Yet 75 per cent said that they suffer mental or physical ill-health as a direct result of monetary stress. The heavy stress of home ownership has an effect on people's well-being.'
Professor Ambrose believes there is a direct link between housing costs in the UK and last year's UNICEF report on child welfare in 21 rich countries, which put UK children's well-being at the bottom of a league table of industrialised nations (News, 15 February 2007). He also sees a connection between rapidly rising housing costs and obesity. 'Many of the households I have interviewed say, spontaneously, that they have no time and energy to cook properly when they get home. The result is greater dependence on processed "quick food" with high fat and salt contents, or on snacks like crisps and chocolate.'
Tied to the nest
Many grown-up children are now obliged to stay in the family home longer, even into their twenties and thirties, because they cannot afford to purchase or rent their own property. The impact this has on independence is all the greater if they have their own children. Overcrowding is also occurring because people are unable to afford housing suitable for their growing families' needs.
'Overcrowding was rife in the research I did in east London in the 1990s and adversely affected children,' says Professor Ambrose. 'It can affect children's ability to work at home, which means that they do not get the most out of their schooling.
'Extra problems are caused by children of widely different ages sharing a bedroom. I spoke to the deputy head of a primary school in Stepney who said that half the young children were asleep by mid-morning, because they shared a room with older siblings and had problems caused by going to sleep at different times and being woken up.
'I also believe overcrowded housing increases the risk of domestic violence and child abuse, but I am not aware of any research on this - it certainly needs doing.'
Australian research reported in 2005 in Sydney and Brisbane shows that security of tenure is also a big issue. When families move from insecure housing in the private rented sector to more secure housing in the public sector, the performance of children in school increases considerably. 'Increased investment in the standards of housing could result in increased cost-effectiveness in education spending,' adds Professor Ambrose.
England on the ladder
In attitudes to housing the UK is unique in Europe, claims Professor Ambrose. 'No other country has such a fetish for the housing ladder. In the rest of Europe there is not the same enormous stress on buying at all. I think the historic routes of this in the UK date back to the 1920s and grew and grew, until in the Thatcher years it was reinforced that if you did not own property then you were not a proper person. Rental stock has gone down drastically as the obsession is on the first-time buyer.'
He firmly believes that housing policy needs to be reformed. Instead of looking at how to get more people to own their own home, which is presently the aim, policy should be ensuring that people are housed in a safe and secure environment that is within their financial means. 'That is currently not what is happening, because the huge stress is that you must somehow buy, no matter what the cost is to you. Everything is wrong in the strategic thinking. It is socially and economically costly in so many ways.'
KEY FACTS
- There are 1.6 million households on council waiting lists in England
- In 1980 there were 6.3 million council homes and in 2006 there were 3.2 million
- From 1993 to 2004 house prices rose 307 per cent and earnings rose 56 per cent
- If house prices had risen with general inflation since 1975, the average price in 2005 would have been £60,000. In fact, it was £180,000 and now it is over £200,000
- A recent Yorkshire Bank survey found that more people are now taking on mortgages over five times their income and lasting more than 25 years
- UK workers work longer hours than others in any EU country
- The reliance on childcare increases all the time as both parents need to work more to cover mortgage costs
- In England, more than 125,000 children were living in temporary accommodation at the end of March 2007(CLG homelessness statistics)
- In Scotland, more than 5,000 children were living in temporary accommodation at the end of December 2006 (Scottish Executive statistics)
- In Wales, nearly 3,000 children were living in temporary accommodation at the end of December 2006 (Welsh Housing Statistics release SDR 92/2007).
