The generation poorer than their parents

ILW

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Again, were back to technological advances.

A lot of houses didn't have those things because they were not the norm. Does not mean the house build was of lower quality.

Give it 40 years, will you state houses are much better quality because most have solar panels on their rooves? Regardless of how the house is built?

Central heating was available from late victorian time, so the technology was there. Just mot ordinary folk could not afford it until much later.

adam611

ukcarper wrote: »

Can I query what generation we are referring to my I’m an early boomer and my children and most of their friends are in a better position than I was at their age. But the prospects for children in their early twenties does look very grim especially the ones who have not got good qualifications.

I think there is to much whinging about house prices ok I got my house relatively cheaper but I could still buy the same house now using today’s lending criteria. But the thing I think I did benefited from as did a lot of other people my age was that you could leave school with hardly any qualification and still get a job with good training and prospects.

I have just turned 29 and have no qualifications other than GCSE's and earn more than most qualified engineers with 6 years extra schooling (not bragging just as an example). I am definitely in a better position than my parents were at my age.There are still plenty of opportunities out there for qualified people and unqualified. It may not be where you want but you want opportunities you have to be prepared to go to them.

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Again, were back to technological advances.

A lot of houses didn't have those things because they were not the norm. Does not mean the house build was of lower quality.

Give it 40 years, will you state houses are much better quality because most have solar panels on their rooves? Regardless of how the house is built?

Your standard modern brick built house is not of the same quality as older houses. Examples of this are they now use dot and dab plasterboard which isn't as good as browning, they use plastic plumbing with compression fittings again not as good. some things have improved such as the standards of the wiring but I have also seen arcing wiring in a 2 year old £500,000 house which was just down to rubbish installation.

olly300

fc123 wrote: »

I am trying to think which opportunities the internet has closed. Genuine question as I can't think of any.

Not the internet specifically but technology has got rid of lots of factory manual jobs plus admin/secretarial jobs in offices like the typing pool and manual bank staff.

ukcarper

adam611 wrote: »

I have just turned 29 and have no qualifications other than GCSE's and earn more than most qualified engineers with 6 years extra schooling (not bragging just as an example). I am definitely in a better position than my parents were at my age.There are still plenty of opportunities out there for qualified people and unqualified. It may not be where you want but you want opportunities you have to be prepared to go to them.



Your standard modern brick built house is not of the same quality as older houses. Examples of this are they now use dot and dab plasterboard which isn't as good as browning, they use plastic plumbing with compression fittings again not as good. some things have improved such as the standards of the wiring but I have also seen arcing wiring in a 2 year old £500,000 house which was just down to rubbish installation.

I'm sure that would be more difficult now.


My house was built in the late 70s and has plaster board stuck to the wall with plaster if that is what dot and dab is and I can't imagine the build quality of a modern houses is much worse.

olly300

adam611 wrote: »

Your standard modern brick built house is not of the same quality as older houses. Examples of this are they now use dot and dab plasterboard which isn't as good as browning, they use plastic plumbing with compression fittings again not as good. some things have improved such as the standards of the wiring but I have also seen arcing wiring in a 2 year old £500,000 house which was just down to rubbish installation.

Modern houses i.e. those planned and then built in the last 10 years have better insulation and sound proofing than many older houses particularly those built around the 1980s.

This means my mates can have parties and the neighbours can't hear us.

fc123

olly300 wrote: »

Not the internet specifically but technology has got rid of lots of factory manual jobs plus admin/secretarial jobs in offices like the typing pool and manual bank staff.

Ok... I understand.
However, the technology has created loads of different jobs now that didn't exist before. Random one; Website designer

I know our admin asst does in 20 hours per week what could have been the jobs of 2 full timers 20 years ago. I can compare as OH used to be a junior book keeper 30 years ago.

Our daughter works with us and does a job that didn't exist even 5 years ago in our business as our sector has changed so much recently.

We manufacture a product (still 80% of it in UK) and the staff in the factory we use who do the actual making have the ' hardest' job in my supply chain......in terms of low pay and monotonous slog day in and day out. They are all on above NMW too.

olly300

fc123 wrote: »

Ok... I understand.
However, the technology has created loads of different jobs now that didn't exist before. Random one; Website designer

Quite.

However someone in such an industry needs to be more intelligent (?) than someone doing a manual repetitive factory job of yesteryear.

One of the issues is that their aren't enough of those sort of manual jobs for young people who can't be bothered to get more qualifications and aren't motivated or able to do a job in one of the new knowledge industries.

mumps

Graham_Devon wrote: »

And are you going to argue times were tougher when it comes to housing back then?

I am not arguing anything, just stating facts. A house was our priority, we started saving when I was 15 and just left school. Four years later we had the deposit and bought a house that was a wreck. The building society lent us the money on the understanding that it was rewirted, new windows, damp treated, all redecorated. We had no money for all that but people rallied round, friend did the rewiring, family helped with the decorating. Parents helped with cash for the windows and damp treatment.

ukcarper

mumps wrote: »

I am not arguing anything, just stating facts. A house was our priority, we started saving when I was 15 and just left school. Four years later we had the deposit and bought a house that was a wreck. The building society lent us the money on the understanding that it was rewirted, new windows, damp treated, all redecorated. We had no money for all that but people rallied round, friend did the rewiring, family helped with the decorating. Parents helped with cash for the windows and damp treatment.

I'd like to add

In terms of wages the first house I bought would cost about 40% more now but the mortgage rate was twice what it is now. You had to save a deposit and with the tighter lending restrictions it was just as hard to get the mortgage you required. So I don’t think it was as easy as Graham imagines.

zagubov

There's lots of material out there showing that Brits have less floorspace and smaller room sizes than most developed word countries, and also that houses are getting smaller due to building regulations focusing on avoiding greenfield developments. In the southeast there are houses with gardens bought by developers who then build small streets with multiple terraced houses on tiny plots of land.

For documentation look up an article by Katie Williams
http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/bispartners/foresight/docs/land-use/jlup/10_space_per_person_in_the_uk_-_a_review_of_densities_trends_experiences.pdf

For that matter Danny Dorling's recent book about British urban geography has loads on this and is pretty accessible.

Only catch is, by the time you get to the end of his book you'll be gnashing your teeth.

Our ageing population is buying houses with spare rooms (because they have the money for it) and our young families (or the people who want to start them) are struggling to find accommodation.

To summarise, the people who need good (or even reasonable) housing aren't getting it, it's been getting worse since at least the 70s, and most of the developing world seems to be handling it better. It's growing into a colossal problem and it's not at all clear to me whose job it even is to fix it.