Housing uncertainty and the transition to parenthood among Britain’s “generation rent”

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 microlevel assumption of a positive link between homeownership and transition to parenthood, at least among Britain’s “Generation Rent”.