Gender Differences in Returning to the Parental Home in the UK: the Role of Social Policy

Gender differences in returning to the parental home in the UK: The role of social policy

Ann Berrington*, Juliet Stone and Jane Falkingham ESRC Centre for Population Change, University of Southampton, UK

10th European Social Policy Analysis Conference, Edinburgh, 6th-8th September 2012 Stream 14. Young People and Social Policy in Europe: New Risks and Emerging Challenges

Abstract This paper investigates the impact of social policy on the dynamics of young adults’ housing trajectories in the UK. Using the British Household Panel Survey we examine how individuals’ life events such as leaving full-time education, unemployment or partnership dissolution affect the risk of returning to the parental home. We find significant gender differences in the likelihood of returning. Union dissolution remains a key trigger but its impact differs by gender and parenthood status. The paper discusses how these gender differences relate to welfare policy. Access to means- tested social assistance and housing mean that young, lone mothers are able to maintain an independent household following partnership dissolution, whereas single people without children and non-resident fathers face more difficulty in accessing such housing and will be more likely to need help from their parents. Furthermore, the raising of the Shared Accommodation Rate of housing benefit to age 35 will have a significant impact on the ability of young non-resident fathers to co-parent their children.

Acknowledgements This research is funded by ESRC Grant number RES-625-28-0001. The ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC) is a joint initiative between the University of Southampton and a consortium of Scottish Universities in partnership with ONS and GROS. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and should not be attributed in any manner to ONS or GROS. The British Household Panel Survey is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. Access to the data is provided by Great Britain Data Archive.

*Corresponding author: Dr Ann Berrington, ESRC Centre for Population Change, University of Southampton, UK, Email: [email protected], Tel: +44 (0) 2380594549

1. Introduction This paper investigates the impact of social policy on the dynamics of young adults’ housing trajectories in the UK. In particular we focus on the way in which social policies impact differentially on the likelihood that men and women return to the parental home after an initial departure. We find that gender differences largely arise from the different caring roles for dependent children, often following a partnership breakdown. Policies which support the primary carer of dependent children enable residential independence for women, whilst non-resident parents, often fathers, are often left unsupported by welfare policies. Recent and future policy changes are likely to exacerbate this situation. The structure of the paper is as follows: First, we briefly review the impact of recent socio-economic, institutional and policy changes in the UK which have acted to increase parent-adult child co-residence. Many media reports have claimed a recent increase in the numbers of young adults returning to the parental home associated with a so-called “boomerang generation”. Less attention in the media, academic or policy literature has been placed on gender differences in patterns of returning home and how social policies might act to engender these. The following section presents results from a statistical analysis of the factors associated with returning home using data from the British Household Panel Survey. We ask two empirical research questions: How do individuals’ life events such as leaving full-time education, unemployment or partnership dissolution affect the risk of returning home? To what extent do these effects vary by gender and parenthood status? The final section discusses the ways in which welfare policies act to promote large gender differences in behaviour and how this is likely to increase in the future.

2. Impact of socio-economic and institutional changes on parent-adult children co- residence

2.1 The UK situation in context

There are significant differences across Europe in the timing of leaving home and the likelihood of returning (Aassve et al. 2002, Billari, Philipov, and Baizan 2001, Iacovou 2002, Mandic 2008). UK young adults tend to leave home at a relative early age (median for women around 19.5 years), similar to other Northern European countries, but in stark contrast to young adults living in Southern Europe where the median age at leave home is in the mid- twenties (Billari and Liefbroer 2010). Several reasons have been advanced to explain these cross-national differences, generally focusing on factors which make independent living less affordable in the South: the scarcity of affordable rented accommodation (Holdsworth 2000), the lack of a well-functioning mortgage market (Buchmann and Kriesi 2011, Martins and Villanueva 2009), the relatively high rates of unemployment and the relatively low wages for those who do have jobs (Aassve et al. 2002)and

2 cultural differences and expectations regarding timing of home leaving (Billari et al. 2001, Chiuri and Del Boca 2010, Holdsworth 2000, Reher 1998). Many authors have suggested that welfare regimes with safety nets act as an incentive for early independence (Aassve et al. 2002, Chiuri and Del Boca 2010). In Britain during the 1970s and 1980s young adults tended to leave home relatively early for both positive reasons e.g. to attend higher education or for marriage, or for negative reasons such as friction in the parental home (Furlong and Cooney 1990, Jones 1995). This early transition was facilitated by relatively generous welfare benefits and a supply of cheap private rented housing, for example in hostels and shared houses. Prior to April 1988, young people were able to claim supplementary benefit shortly after leaving school, with those aged 18 or above qualifying at the adult rate (Furlong and Cooney 1990). However, since April 1988, Government reforms of the social security system have attempted to increase the responsibility of the family for young adults, the state relinquishing its responsibilities by “increasing the age at which independence is assumed to start” (Harris, 1989, p. 45). For example, the change in 1988 from Supplementary Benefit to Income Support meant that 16 and 17 year olds no longer qualified for income support. Furthermore, the new system abolished the householder/non-householder distinction in welfare payments and replaced it with two age-bands of payment, the dividing-line of which is 25. Under the new provisions, young householders aged 16-24 were particular losers, for they received less Income Support and less Housing Benefit (Berrington and Murphy 1994). Despite high levels of youth unemployment in the economic downturn of the early 1980s and early 1990s young adults in the UK persisted in leaving home at relatively early ages throughout the 1980s and 1990s, although many more now left to live independently outside of a family than to form a new family (Berrington and Murphy 1994, Berrington, Stone, and Falkingham 2009). At the same time young adults were increasingly likely to return suggesting that initial departures from the parental home are not necessarily associated with independence (Holdsworth and Morgan 2005, Wallace and Jones 1992). During the past two decades there have been further socio-economic and institutional changes which have affected young adults’ ability to maintain residential independence including the continued collapse of the youth labour market (compounded by recent economic recession), decreased housing affordability and recent welfare retrenchment (Stone, Berrington, and Falkingham 2011). Evidence from the Labour Force Survey suggests that over this time period there has been a concomitant increase in parent – adult child co-residence (Berrington et al. 2009) particularly among those in their twenties and among disadvantaged men in their early thirties (Stone et al. 2011). Whilst it is not possible from cross-sectional data to tell whether increased co-

3 residence results from delayed departure from the parental home, or from increased returns to the parental home, the British media has tended to assume that these trends reflect an increasing pattern of returning to the parental home characterising a generation of “boomerangers” (Bingham 2009, Cowie 2012, Waite 2008).

2.2 Impact of Economic Recession and Changes in the Housing Market

It is generally assumed that economic recession makes it more difficult for young adults to maintain residential independence from the parental home. Youth have been particularly hard hit in the recent economic downturn. Attention has focused not only on the increasing numbers of those ‘not in employment, education or training’ – NEETs (Maguire and Rennison 2005, Thompson 2011), but also focused on the weakening jobs market for the increasing pool of graduates entering the labour market (Office for National Statistics 2012), in many cases seeking jobs for which they are over- qualified, and accepting lower wages than their qualifications would be expected to garner (Chevalier and Lindley 2009, Green and Zhu 2010). In addition commentators have highlighted the precarious situation of a middle group who do not attend higher education, who are in relatively low skilled, low wage jobs. This group, sometimes labelled as the “missing middle” (Roberts 2011) or the “squeezed middle” (Whittaker and Bailey 2012) have few prospects for job promotion and gaining sufficient wage to raise the money required for the deposit for a rented home, let alone a deposit for buying their own home. Partly in response to a heightened need for qualifications to compete in the job market there has been an increased uptake to HE, particularly by women, which although facilitating early moves into residential independence is also associated with, often temporary, returns to the parental home on completion (Holdsworth 2009). Stone and colleagues (2011) argue that much of the observed increase in parental co-residence of women in their early to mid-twenties can be explained by an increased up-take of HE. In the future, higher fees are likely to encourage young adults to attend local universities and remain in the parental home while studying. Furthermore, returning to the parental home at the end of formal education is likely to increase as a result of rising levels of student debt and a weaker graduate jobs market (Andrew 2010, Clapham et al. 2012). The effects of an uncertain youth labour market have been compounded by a change in housing stock and affordability. First-time buyers have found it increasingly difficult to enter the housing market with average “house price to individual income” ratios increasing from around 3 to greater than 5 by the mid-2000s (Wilcox 2005). Whilst house prices have fallen slightly in recent years, owner-occupation has not become any more affordable due to the credit constraints and changes in loan-to-value (LTV) ratios resulting from the banking crisis of the late 2000s (Clapham et

4 al. 2012, Kennett, Forrest, and Marsh 2012). The need to have a large deposit to secure a competitive interest rate loan means that parental assistance in first home purchase is key (Heath and Calvert 2011). Recent evidence from the Council of Mortgage Lenders suggests that the majority of young adults aged 18-24 continue to view owner occupation as a long term goal but that they are not necessarily looking to achieve this tenure in two years' time (Council of Mortgage Lenders 2012). At the same time as young adults are being priced out of owner occupation we have seen a continued contraction in the availability of social housing. The proportion of all households renting from a social landlord declined from 32% in 1981 to 23% in 1991 and only 17% in 2009/10 (Kemp 2011). Young adults’, particularly those without children, access to social housing is likely to remain constrained given the continued sales of social housing stock to sitting tenants under Right to Buy policies and the Government austerity measures making new build of social housing less likely. This decline in the social housing is putting increased pressure on the private rental sector (PRS), particularly to accommodate low income households, including young people. This will become increasingly so with changes under the Localism Act passed in November 2011 whereby Local Authorities can discharge their duties under the Homelessness Act by providing a 12 month tenancy in the PRS (Kennett et al. 2012). Whilst the PRS has significantly increased over the past three decades (the proportion of all households renting from PRS increased from 9% in 1991 to 16% in 2009/10(Kemp 2011), increasing rents and declining Government support with rents have meant that young adults who are unemployed or on low income may also struggle to attain residential independence. As discussed in more detail in the next section, young single adults have seen their housing benefit restricted to the average rent for shared accommodation and there is evidence that private landlords prefer not to rent to young people on housing benefit (Kemp and Rugg 1998). In summary, we anticipate that the economic recession, credit crunch and residualisation of social housing will have prolonged the financial dependence of young adults upon their parents, postponing the age at which they can leave home, and making it more likely that they return.

2.3 Welfare policies affecting young adults’ transitions to residential independence

Below we discuss three areas where social policies impact on young adults’ ability to maintain residential independence from the parental home: Statutory homelessness policy; access to social housing; and housing benefit restrictions for single young adults. The Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 first established a statutory safety net for certain groups of homeless people. The act was subsequently re-enacted in the Housing Act 1985 and replaced by Homelessness Act 2002. Eligible households found to be homeless and in priority need are entitled to be accommodated by the Local Authority. Households with dependent children and pregnant women are amongst those with priority need status and from the outset have comprised

5 the majority of the households accepted as owed the main homelessness duty in England (Pleace et al. 2008). Partnership breakdown is the most prevalent reason for applying as homeless among adults (Pleace et al. 2008) and since the majority of dependent children co-reside with their mother following a partnership dissolution (Office for National Statistics 2011), it is not surprising that the majority of families housed (often in temporary accommodation) under this legislation are female lone parents. Social housing in the UK, whether provided by Local Authorities or private Housing Associations has become increasing residualised in recent decades with access being restricted by a needs-based allocation (Kennett et al. 2012). The current statutory framework prescribes a series of ‘reasonable preference’ categories for council house allocations, including: families with dependent children and pregnant women; people occupying temporary or insecure accommodation; persons with a particular need for settled accommodation on medical or welfare grounds; households whose social and economic circumstances mean that they have difficulty securing settled accommodation; and statutorily homeless households (Fitzpatrick and Pawson 2007). Since children tend to primarily reside with their mothers, women tend to have better access to such housing for example following partnership dissolution. Access to social housing for lone mothers has been seen by many (including some high profile Conservative politicians) as encouraging teenage parenthood as a route to jump the housing queue (Lewis 1997, Walter 2012). Whilst this safety net permits a degree of residential independence, many families are placed in inappropriate temporary accommodation whilst they wait for more suitable social housing to become available and there is little evidence to support the idea that young girls become pregnant in order to jump a housing queue (Giullari and Shaw 2005, Pleace et al. 2008). Housing benefit policies also impact upon the ability of young adults to sustain residential independence, in particular their ability to live alone in a self-contained property. Whilst most benefit recipients are seeing a reduction in the generosity of their housing benefit under recent welfare reform (Kennett et al. 2012), young adults have been particularly hard hit through the restriction of housing benefit for those aged under 35, to the level of a room in a shared house. The Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR) was originally introduced as the Single Room Rate, capping housing benefit for those under age 25 (Kemp and Rugg 1998) but was extended to those aged under 35 in April 2012 (Rugg, Rhodes, and Wilcox 2011). For housing benefit purposes, a shared room is accommodation where the tenant has exclusive use of only one bedroom, and where the tenancy provides for shared use of one or more of a kitchen, a bathroom, a toilet, or a living room (Rugg et al. 2011).The Government’s stated objectives for this extension to age 35 are to ensure that those receiving housing benefit do not have an advantage over those who are not on benefit, but

6 have to make similar choices about what they can afford; to help contain growing housing benefit expenditure; and to remove a potential work disincentive (Department for Work and Pensions 2011). The SAR thus discourages young adults to leave home and makes it more difficult to maintain independence, especially in geographical areas where houses in multiple occupation are less available. As noted by the Government itself, the SAR is not a family friendly policy since some young non-resident parents – of which there are a significant number of men in their late twenties and early thirties – can no longer afford to live in a self-contained property suitable for the joint care of their children.

2.4 A Gender Perspective: Non – resident fathers and welfare policy

Rules for housing entitlement and housing benefit are based on the assumption that, following partnership breakdown, one parent has primary care of the child. Following separation, the majority of UK children remain primarily resident with their mother (Office for National Statistics 2011). However, this obsfucates often complex parenting arrangements with parents attempting to share caring responsibilities. Shared parenting has attracted much debate from lobby groups, academics, and policy makers (see, for example, Fehlberg et al. 2011, Smart 2004). The UK Government has declared support for the view that the vast majority of children “benefit from a continuing relationship with both parents, and that shared parenting should be encouraged where this is in the child’s best interests and is safe” (Ministry for Justice and Departent for Education 2012). However, the Government, through its recent cuts to housing benefit, particularly to single people aged under 35, and proposed changes in the rules for under-occupancy of social housing make it difficult for low income non-resident parents to participate fully in the caring of their children. Many non-resident fathers aged under 35 will be classed as single with no dependent children, will not be a priority for social housing and will only qualify for housing benefit in the PRS at the Shared Accommodation Rate. Living in a bedsit or sharing a house, particularly with strangers, may not be ideal conditions for permitting children to visit or stay overnight. A recent study by Crisis found evidence that some non-resident parents reporting difficulties in maintaining their relationship with their children due to problems with shared accommodation including “noise levels, cleanliness of communal areas, and doubts about the backgrounds of other residents” (Rugg et al. 2011).

2.5 Summary

Across socioeconomic groups there has been an extension of young adults’ dependency, or ‘semi- dependency’, on their parents. Co-residence with parents is likely to be a consequence, with cycles of leaving and returning to the parental home part of a ‘non-linear’ life course that is a key feature of

7 individualisation. Differential access to housing and welfare support by age and parenthood status means that the ability to maintain residential independence from the parental home is gendered. While there is support available for lone mothers, equivalent support for young non-residential fathers is more variable. We would thus expect significant gender differences in patterns of returning home, for example following a partnership dissolution.

3. Gender differences in returning home in Britain: Evidence from the British Household Panel Study (BHPS)

In this section we provide new empirical evidence as to how individuals’ life events such as leaving full-time education, unemployment or partnership dissolution influence returning home and examine how these effects vary by gender and parenthood status.

3.1 Data and Methods

The BHPS is a nationally representative panel study of individuals from 5500 households first interviewed in 1991, with children from original households added to the sample each year when they reach the age of 16 years. Currently 18 waves of data are available, through to 2008. For further details see the BHPS User Guide (Taylor et al. 2010). Using information collected within the household grid, it is possible to identify movement out of and back into the parental home as the study progresses. Individuals co-residing with at least one natural, adoptive or step-parent are defined as living in the parental home. We use a paired years approach to investigate the likelihood that young adults living outside the parental home at a given annual panel wave (t0), return to live with their parents one year later (t1). Our sample consists of individuals who provide valid data from at least two consecutive waves, who are living away from their parents in the first of these waves (t0), and in our target age range of 20-34 years at t0. We then track individuals through the subsequent, consecutive waves until they return to the parental home, are lost to follow-up or the survey reaches its final wave. This sub-sample includes 2,342 men with 10,522 person-years of data and 2,928 women with 14,706 person-years. Using this dataset and a discrete time hazards model we can thus look at the impact of covariates on the log-odds of returning home. In order to identify differences by gender we run the analyses separately for men and women. Time-varying covariates e.g. income are measured at the start of each one-year period during which returning home can occur. We use wave (period) as the discrete unit of time in the hazard model.

We construct change variables that denote a change in circumstances between two annual waves. Based on the change in economic activity (employed; unemployed or inactive; full-time student) between two consecutive waves, we construct an eight-category variable: 1. Student to employed; 2. Student to unemployed/inactive; 3. Unemployed/inactive to employed; 4. Employed to unemployed/inactive; 5. New student; 6. Stable student; 7. Stable employed; 8. Stable unemployed/inactive. Three categories of partnership dynamics are identified: 1. New or stable partnership; 2. Consistently unpartnered; 3. Partnership dissolution. We do not include newly partnered as a separate category in our models as none of the sample members following this pattern returned to the parental home. In order to test whether the impact of partnership dissolution differs according to parenthood status we include a two-way interaction between parenthood status at t0 and the partnership dynamic variable. Other control variables are: age, individual income and parental occupational class.

3.2 Results

Table 1 shows the parameter estimates from a discrete time hazards model of returning home for men and women separately. The likelihood of returning declines with age and men are significantly more likely to return than women. There is little evidence of a significant trend in returning home over the period 1991-2008. Compared to those who remain employed at both time-points, those who move out of student status are very likely to return home, particularly if they move into unemployment or become economically inactive. Moving from being employed to being unemployed or economically inactive is also associated with an increased propensity to return. Overall, any change in status appears to increase the propensity to return; new students are also more likely to return than those in employment, particularly among men.

Table 1. Parameter estimates from discrete time hazards model of returning home. Males Females Change in economic activity (ref. stable employed) Student to employed 2.039*** 1.713*** Student to unemployed or inactive 2.909*** 2.312*** Unemployed or inactive to employed 0.785** 0.359 Employed to unemployed or inactive 0.988*** 1.238*** New student 1.518*** 0.927** Stable student -0.044 -0.116 Stable unemployed or inactive 0.064 -0.580 Change in partnership status (ref. consistently unpartnered) New or stable partnership -3.432*** -2.877*** Dissolution 1.660*** 1.530*** Whether a parent (ref. non-parent) Parent -0.060 -1.670*** Partner x parent Stable.unpartnered X parent 0.596 1.44*** Dissolution X parent 0.870 -0.118 Period (ref. 1991-1996) 1997-2002 0.007 0.054 2003-2008 -0.004 0.190 Age group (ref. 20-24) 25-29 -1.009*** -1.275*** 30-34 -1.812*** -1.659*** Individual income (ref. quartile 1, lowest) Quartile 2 0.042 -0.264 Quartile 3 -0.095 0.212 Quartile 4 (highest) -0.375 -0.461† Parental occ. class (ref. service) Intermediate class 0.169 -0.044 Working class 0.572*** 0.004 Unemployed/inactive 0.271 0.053 Not known 0.204 0.541* Constant -2.492 -2.178

Males: 10522 person years, model pseudo R2 0.42 Females: 14706 person years, model pseudo R2 0.38.

Figure 1 shows the predicted annual probabilities of returning home by change in economic activity for men and women, with all other covariates held constant at the baseline category. This clearly shows the higher propensity to return among those moving out of student status, with the highest probability (0.6) among men moving from education to unemployment.

Figure 1: Predicted annual probabilities of returning home by change in economic activity for men and women.

Partnership dissolution is very strongly associated with returning home. We see large, positive, and highly significant coefficients, especially for men. Compared with those in a new or stable partnership, men and women who are unpartnered at both time-points are also much more likely to return, although the coefficients are not so large as those for dissolution. A significant interaction is found between partnership and parenthood for women but not for men . Being a parent significantly reduces the likelihood that women who are unpartnered or who experience a union dissolution will return to the parental home. Figure 2 shows the predicted probabilities of returning home according to partnership and parenthood experience. Women who experience a union dissolution are the most likely to return home among both female parents and non-parents, but those who experience a union dissolution and have no co-resident children have a predicted probability of returning of

0.33, compared with just 0.07 among mothers who experience a union dissolution. In contrast, parenthood has little impact on returning for women in a new or stable partnership, with predicted probabilities close to zero.

Figure 2: Predicted probabilities of returning home according to partnership and parenthood experience for men and women.

For men, the interaction between partnership and parenthood is large and positive but does not reach statistical significance (Table 1). Figure 2 shows that, among men who have experienced a union dissolution the predicted probability of returning is 0.54 for fathers, compared with 0.34 for non-fathers. As for women, parenthood has no impact on the probability of returning for men in a new or stable partnership, with predicted probabilities close to zero for fathers and non-fathers, respectively.

4. Discussion

4.1 Key findings

We have shown that returning home in the UK is associated with key turning points in the life course such as leaving full time education, becoming unemployed or experiencing partnership breakdown. Finishing full time education and losing a job affect men and women in similar ways to push them towards the parental home. However, overall, men are far more likely to return home than women. This pattern in part relates to the behaviour of males and females following partnership dissolution. For childless men and women, the impact of dissolution is similar. However, for mothers, union dissolution has little impact on the propensity to return to the parental home. Conversely, non- resident fathers are very likely to return to the parental home following a union dissolution. For better off couples who own their own home, mothers will more often remain in the family home following dissolution. For low income families, dependent either upon social housing or housing benefits, the rules on priority access and benefit level entitlements mean that young lone mothers are able to maintain an independent household whilst young non-resident fathers are often forced to return to the parental home. Social housing is an important ‘safety net’ for lone parents, meaning that they are less likely to need rely on their parents for accommodation following a union dissolution.

4.2 Implications of future policy changes

Continuing uncertainty in the youth labour market coupled with high levels of student debt means that co-residence with parents is likely to increase further among young adults in the UK. The lack of mortgage finance and large deposits required for first time buyers means that renting is the only realistic option for the majority of young adults (Clapham et al. 2012). Large scale investment in new build of social housing seems unlikely. Competition for existing stock is likely to mean that social housing will increasingly become restricted to those in greatest need, excluding many single men and women, and childless couples (Kennett et al. 2012). Increasingly those on low pay will be pushed into the private rented housing sector. However, for many young adults the levels of housing benefit available will not enable them to afford their rent and as noted by Kemp “The substantial cuts in housing benefit that are currently being implemented by the Coalition Government are likely to seriously exacerbate this problem” (Kemp 2011,p. 1032).

In June 2012 the Prime Minister David Cameron gave a media interview in which he advocated removing all housing benefit for under 25s, including those with dependent children (Walters 2012). This proposal which presumes that those without the economic means to live independently would live with their parents (Fleming 2012) was immediately denounced by commentators and housing charities (see for example Crisis 2012; Kelly 2012) since not all young adults can return home. Previous research has shown that the young unemployed are more likely to report high levels of friction and tension within the parental home, and to give 'negative reasons' as the reason for leaving home (Jones 1995). Furthermore, we saw during the 1980s recession that, for many low-income and unemployed parents, the increasing economic burden of young adult children is too great, forcing some young adults to leave the parental home (Furlong and Cooney 1990). A similar impact of the current reforms has been predicted (Brown 2012). Finally, the Welfare Reform Bill, to be implemented in 2013/14, states that housing benefits to tenants in social housing will be determined according to the size of the claimant’s household: Claimants who are occupying a larger property than their household size requires will be required to either downsize or make up the shortfall in rent (Department for Work and Pensions 2012). Those living with dependent children are less likely to be affected by the measure since the children will be taken into account in determining the size of the accommodation which is considered reasonable. However, once again we see that young non-resident parents are likely to be penalised by this new policy which does not address the reality of shared parenting responsibilities. It seems that young non-resident fathers will increasingly have to rely on the support of their parents.

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