BLOG: The housing affordability gap and why we need to invest in social housing for women
The members of the Women’s Housing Forum believe that housing is a feminist issue.
The Coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated many of the existing inequalities within our society. While men appear to be more likely to become ill with the virus, women, particularly BAME women, have been disproportionately affected by the socio-economic impact of the crisis.
In a post-Covid recession, the two sectors likely to be hardest hit are hospitality and retail, both which employ significant numbers of female workers. As a result, more women are having to access Universal Credit, with those who are single mothers making up 85% of those affected by the ‘benefit cap’. The Institute of Fiscal Studies and the UCL Institute of Education found that mothers were 47% more like to have permanently lost their job or quit.
The particular restrictions of Lockdown during the pandemic also led to a surge in Domestic Abuse cases; Refuge, a national domestic abuse charity, reported a 700% increase in calls to its helpline in a single day during April 2020. This issue is further exacerbated by the limited options of affordable move-on accommodation available to women who have been housed in temporary accommodation during the crisis.
Truly affordable housing should cost less than a third of a household’s income. However, research by the Nat Fed for the Women’s Housing Forum in 2018 showed that there is no region in England where a woman on an average woman’s income can afford to live in a privately rented property. Conversely a man on an average male salary could afford to rent in every region except London.
The hourly gender pay was only part of the story, as women are more likely to work part-time or have gaps in employment due to caring responsibilities the study found that women’s overall earnings were, on average, 34% less than men’s.
So there is a clear housing affordability gap. Women on average earn less, and have lower levels of wealth, than men, making it more difficult to find and secure suitable housing for themselves and their families.
How unaffordable housing affects women
· Earning Capabilities. The lack of affordable housing often prices women out of areas where they can find suitable, well-paid jobs, forces them to travel expensive and long distances for work, and restricts their earning capabilities due to their childcare responsibilities.
· Reliance on Support Networks. Women, and in particular single mothers, often rely on a social network of friends and family for informal and affordable/free childcare which give them greater access to employment opportunities. These networks were unavailable to most during the lockdown.
· Safety. Being unable to access, and keep, safe and suitable housing can trap women in abusive relationships or push them into homelessness.
· Homelessness. Being unable to afford a safe home leads to high levels of homelessness for women and their children. Single mother families make up 60% of all homeless families in the UK. (“A home of her own” WBG 2019)
· Poverty. Women are more likely than men to be poor. Unaffordable housing costs, coupled with lower incomes, means that 20% of women are living in poverty. (“A home of her own” WBG 2019)
Women and Housing at the heart of prosperous communities
Social housing is crucial to women and the development of prosperous communities. For women to thrive – be free from abuse, able to access work and training opportunities, and able to reconcile their work and childcare responsibilities – they must have access to safe, secure, and truly affordable housing.
Housing can both respond to, and help address, the gendered inequalities experienced by women. Therefore we urge policy makers to increase options for single women and women with children to access and retain affordable housing.
The Women’s housing Forum, co-chaired by Women’s Pioneer Housing and Housing for Women, is pleased to support the National Housing Federation’s #HomesAtTheHeart campaign.