“The most important fact in modern British domestic politics: in the 1990s, a first-time buyer couple on a low-to-middle income saving 5% of their wages would have enough for an average deposit after three years. Today it would take them 24 years.” https://t.co/Vy004BZDTq

— Nicholas Boys Smith (@boys_nicholas) December 2, 2023

Growing up in Britain in the later part of the last century was underpinned by the economic hope that I , no matter what else befell me in terms or work and pension prosect, would have equity in my hone.

Whatever the legitimacy of this hope, it gave me and my family both security and a sense of economic purpose.

In practice, it was not my house that has provided me with security in later life, but the money I squirrelled away as savings, invested in world equity markets.

Many young people today do not have the opportunity of home ownership that I did and I find my children and their friends do not aspire as I do , to get their feet on the housing ladder, since the first rung is placed so high above the ground.

Instead , they are suffering from the hiking of rents, especially in the capital, leaving them without the security and sense of economic purpose that I had.

In this sense, I recognise the sense in the sentiment expressed by Nicholas Boyes.

If not housing – what?

The question that puzzles me is “what replaces “housing” as a motivator”

Here I find myself a stage removed from those , generations below me, who come into the work market today.

Many people in pensions want the answer to that question to be “pensions” and there are signs that many young people have taken to heart the “save early, save hard” mantra that I taught myself.

Clearly there are many who ride the rollercoaster of crypto-currency investment and some who trade in these markets successfully. Day-trading has moved on but remains a minority sport that has yet to be intermediated. I know of no regulated financial advisers , who advise on or who maintain crypto as central to their wealth management or wealth accumulation strategies.

My guess is that if young people trust in anything, it is in the store of their human capital and their capacity to use work as a means to self-advancement.

I do not sense that they are reliant on my generation for wealth to cascade down to them. Self-reliance and resilience are features of what are – to me – the next generation but one.

Not answers but questions.

I suspect that economic circumstances are different for those in their twenties and thirties to those that I enjoyed. They have a voice , through social media, I did not enjoy. They have a thriving ecosystem of entertainment which they control and which is far more professional than the chaos of my day.

It strikes me that the answers to the problems created by the parlous state of the housing market are found by those who are in it and that it is both patronising and silly for my generation to overly exercise ourselves about lack of opportunity.

We worry about the lack of productivity in Britain today but we know so little about what motivates the generations that take the baton from us and drive forward the economic agenda.

Out of touch?

I realise, in publishing these vague musings, I am articulating a remoteness from my children and what they want which shames me.

But that separation may be necessary, I am not the bank of Dad – nor is my partner the bank of Mum. We envy the energy and dynamism of those we work with who are young without fully entering into their lives.

We are separate and not in control, but we are a resource if needs be. I guess that is both our complaint and solace.

And being “out of touch” is a necessary condition. To want our kids to relive our lives is to be regressive, things move on, even if we don’t.