Muristek
Why can’t women in the UK afford to buy their own houses? We ask an expert
Sara Reis, of the nonprofit Women’s Budget Group, says there is nowhere in the UK where an average-earning female can afford her own place
It is well known that the UK’s astronomic property prices have locked many people out of home ownership – especially if you’re single. Indeed, there is no region in the UK where a man or woman on median earnings could buy on their own. But a damning report has revealed there is no region where a median-earning woman can even rent alone. I asked the report’s author, Sara Reis, why.
The title of A Home of Her Own borrows from Virginia Woolf’s 1929 essay where she writes that a woman “must have money and a room of her own”. Woolf is talking about writing conditions, but I wonder if women have ever had the space they need.I don’t think this situation is necessarily new. But we know that, say, 30 years ago, wages and house prices were much closer than they are now. So housing affordability has decreased for everyone, but women still earn less. And if you have a gender pay gap, you will have a gender housing affordability gap.
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