Housing uncertainty and the transition to parenthood among Britain’s "Generation Rent"

Valentina Tocchioni (), Ann Berrington (), Daniele Vignoli () and Agnese Vitali ()
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Ann Berrington: Department of Social Statistics and Demography, University of Southampton
Agnese Vitali: Dipartimento di Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale, Università di Trento

No 2019_07, Econometrics Working Papers Archive from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti"

Abstract: The literature suggests a positive link between homeownership and transition to parenthood. However, couples’ preferences to become homeowners before having their first child have been undermined by rising housing uncertainty and housing unaffordability over recent decades. Britain is an archetype example: homeownership rates have fallen markedly among young adults as a result of low wages, precarious employment, reductions in the availability of mortgage credit, and rising house prices, generating a housing crisis. Using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991-2008) and the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (2009-2016), and applying multilevel discrete-time event-history techniques on a sample of women aged 18-42, we investigate whether and how the link between housing tenure and first birth has changed over recent decades in Britain. We find that, in comparison to the 1990s, the likelihood of becoming a parent has declined among homeowners in recent years, whereas childbearing rates among private renters have remained stable. Thus owner occupiers and private renters have become more similar in terms of their likelihood of entering parenthood. Overall, our findings question the classical micro-level assumption of a positive link between homeownership and transition to parenthood, at least among Britain’s "Generation Rent".

Keywords: housing tenure; transition to motherhood; Britain; event-history analysis; panel data; multilevel models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 J13 R20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2019-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-ure
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