The Guardian: The boom in one-person households
Analysis: Home alone. Welcome to the new world of single-person households. Macaulay Culkin might not be typical - a pensioner or divorcee would be more representative - but he does herald the demographic and cultural shift away from the Smug Marrieds. He's lucky: he has a home. With five million more needed, opportunities are knocking. By David Rowan
HERE'S a surefire investment tip for anyone with cash to tie up for the next two decades or so. Go big on dating agencies, pizza-delivery outfits and home-security consultants. Buy heavily into nursing-supply agencies, cappuccino bars and companies that manufacture half-sized dishwashers. For a social revolution is underway, and - as with all revolutions - there are going to be winners as well as losers.
The main loser, according to various pressure groups now lobbying John Prescott's super-ministry, is likely to be the rural landscape of England, most notably the green belt. The winners will be those who foresee the opportunities offered by demand for five or so million new homes by the year 2016: property developers, retailers, service-providers and entrepreneurs. For Britain (or mostly, England) is rapidly moving towards being a nation of singletons - people who, through choice, misfortune or simple longevity, find themselves living alone.
In 1971, only 18 per cent of households in England were one-person households. By 1991 this had risen to just over a quarter; yet by 2016, the Government predicts, the tally will have risen to some 36 per cent(1). Pause to digest that figure of 36 per cent: it means that approaching four out of 10 of England's 24 million projected homes will be occupied by just one person. And at present, we do not have anywhere near the number of homes needed for them.
The Government says that 4.4 million new homes will be needed by 2016. Yesterday, as speculation grew that the figure would soon be raised to 5.5 million, John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that the matter was being revised. He dismissed as alarmist warnings that the new homes would cut into the green belt, and promised a Commons statement by Easter. But the issue will not rest until then. Tomorrow, a cross-party group of MPs and peers will meet at the Commons to provoke a national debate on the subject. The issue, according to the Labour backbencher Paddy Tipping, is a 'timebomb about to explode' in the face of rural England.
The revolution may signify a demographic and cultural shift away from the Smug Marrieds, but it is not simply a move towards the Bridget Joneses. For all the colour-supplement spreads locating the new singleton's home in a Clerkenwell loft, and her concerns as the conquest of a sexual mate and the loss of calories, the trend has a rather more complex origin. About half of these new single-person households will be over pensionable age. Many more will be a consequence of our high divorce rate: there were 155,310 decrees absolute granted in England and Wales in 1996, compared with 45,036 thirty years ago(2). We are also marrying later, and more of us are leaving home to go to university, where we develop the habit of living away from our parents.
Beside all this, demographic changes mean more twenty-somethings are forecast for the second decade of the new century. Yet for all the publicity given of late to the new economic power of single young women, perhaps most interesting is the rise in the number of male single-person households. 'From 1971 to 2016, the number of male one-person households has grown from 3 per cent to 13 per cent of total households,' explains Justin Worsley, senior consultant at The Henley Centre, the consumer consultancy. 'Plenty more 20- and 30-something men are living on their own, as the average age of marriage (now 28.6) keeps rising. What's driving them largely is an increase in disposable income, and an increase in mobility as they change jobs. Plus more go away to college, and get the habit of living away from home.'
The English county councils have already made detailed plans for new housing needs over the next two decades, based on government projections for the growth in urban spread. The Planning Minister, Richard Caborn, announced recently that half the new homes will be built on 'brownfield' sites that had already housed some development, and half on new rural sites. From Avon (where 44,500 new houses are planned) to Wiltshire (expecting 65,000), the counties' plans have led groups such as the Council for the Protection of Rural England to fear for the future of the green belt.
Professor Peter Hall, chairman of the Town and Country Planning Association and Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College, London, believes that 'the threat to the green belt has been exaggerated, just because a controversial development near Stevenage happens to be on green-belt land. For the most part, green belt will remain sacrosanct.' He does, however, worry that even the Government's own prediction of new housing need will prove too low. 'The 4.4 million was an underestimate: you could be talking of a million more, quite apart from the demographic shift we're reliably told is forcing the Government to raise its projections. It didn't include any allowance for the backlog that built up in the 1980s, especially in social housing, and it didn't take in the obsolescence of our housing stock - the Victorian houses wearing out in northern textile towns, the tackier end of the 1920s and 30s houses along east London bypasses, the residual 1960s stuff that has a short shelf life.'
Yet this does not mean that developers, geared towards the most profitable opportunities, should be left to decide what to build. Hall points to the distinct groups making up the new demand among single households. 'The three groups - younger people; the divorced and separated; and older people outliving their partners - have very different housing, lifestyle and consumption needs. Young people might like to live next to the wine bar, but the divorced usually have kids and will want space for their visiting times; and older people will tend to stay living where they were living as long as they can.' His recommendation is that local and central government should open a new round of strategic planning, and quickly. 'Developers like to make money, but we need a proper planning framework to make sure they go in the right place.'
Certainly, it would be wrong to overestimate the number of prospective new buyers who will want to buy property on the reclaimed rural landscape. Paul Rickard, head of research at market analysts Mintel, warns: 'Being single for some people is a lifestyle statement: I don't see such people wanting to live in Milton Keynes-type greenfield sites. And many of the new households will be people downsizing after, say, a divorce; these people are accustomed to urban or suburban homes, and I'd quibble how far they'd be prepared to sever these links and move to a rural site. Builders could be missing their targets.'
Others, too, stress that rural may not necessarily be where the demand is. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which publishes research into such demographic changes, has put its money where its mouth is: it has invested in what it calls 'Caspars' - an acronym for city-centre apartments for single people at affordable rents. 'There's likely to be a demand for city-centre apartments for rent by the young, relatively mobile, and by not-quite-so-young divorcees and never-married single people,' explains the foundation's director, Richard Best. 'We've decided to build a couple of these as we believe the market is there. They're also likely to make a difference to the liveliness and economic well-being of city centres.'
FOR those also considering entering the market, hurry: the revolution is happening already. 'Within five years we're going to see another million households in the UK, the bulk of them occupied by single people,' according to Paul Rickard. This will create opportunities for far more than property itself. Take consumer spending. 'If you're on your own, you do not need to compromise: people will be more headstrong about doing what turns them on, and taking that two-week trekking holiday in the Pyrenees, which a partner might never allow. Then there are mortgage products which will need to be rethought; and there's potentially an opportunity for manufacturers of appliances and durables to suit the smaller household.'
Single people who live alone, and are below retirement age, spend about Pounds190 a week on average, compared with Pounds170 for those in two-adult households(3). They spend Pounds7 a week on eating and drinking out, compared with Pounds6.50 for those in two-adult homes; they also tend to be more promiscuous grocery shoppers. This is where the bright investor will find new opportunities. 'For most blokes in particular, one person is not enough to cook for - so there will be a significant increase in takeaway food and ready meals,' according to Justin Worsley, at the Henley Centre. 'There will also be growth in white goods, such as kettles, toasters and TVs, which are bought per household not per person.
'People will also be using out-of-house activities more for socialising. Restaurants, pubs and cinemas will be their social base, especially as the entry costs for a nice restaurant tumble down in relation to a fast-food joint; already you can eat at Cafe Rouge for Pounds10 a head. One thing you'll see is a growth in suburban coffee bars, moving from the inner city.'
Already there is evidence of a trend towards pubs domesticating themselves, with sofas and homely designs. This will continue, says Justin Worsley. But if he were investing his own windfall? 'I'd be looking for leisure canapes . . . Rather than conventional restaurants you go to for three hours' entertainment, these are places where you can spend the same amount of time dipping in and out of food courts, bowling alleys, video games, even evening classes.' Your financial adviser may wish to nuance some of these tips. But in 20 years, don't say you weren't pointed in the right direction.
David Rowan is editor of the Analysis page.
(The Guardian, January 20 1998)
HERE'S a surefire investment tip for anyone with cash to tie up for the next two decades or so. Go big on dating agencies, pizza-delivery outfits and home-security consultants. Buy heavily into nursing-supply agencies, cappuccino bars and companies that manufacture half-sized dishwashers. For a social revolution is underway, and - as with all revolutions - there are going to be winners as well as losers.
The main loser, according to various pressure groups now lobbying John Prescott's super-ministry, is likely to be the rural landscape of England, most notably the green belt. The winners will be those who foresee the opportunities offered by demand for five or so million new homes by the year 2016: property developers, retailers, service-providers and entrepreneurs. For Britain (or mostly, England) is rapidly moving towards being a nation of singletons - people who, through choice, misfortune or simple longevity, find themselves living alone.
In 1971, only 18 per cent of households in England were one-person households. By 1991 this had risen to just over a quarter; yet by 2016, the Government predicts, the tally will have risen to some 36 per cent(1). Pause to digest that figure of 36 per cent: it means that approaching four out of 10 of England's 24 million projected homes will be occupied by just one person. And at present, we do not have anywhere near the number of homes needed for them.
The Government says that 4.4 million new homes will be needed by 2016. Yesterday, as speculation grew that the figure would soon be raised to 5.5 million, John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, said that the matter was being revised. He dismissed as alarmist warnings that the new homes would cut into the green belt, and promised a Commons statement by Easter. But the issue will not rest until then. Tomorrow, a cross-party group of MPs and peers will meet at the Commons to provoke a national debate on the subject. The issue, according to the Labour backbencher Paddy Tipping, is a 'timebomb about to explode' in the face of rural England.
The revolution may signify a demographic and cultural shift away from the Smug Marrieds, but it is not simply a move towards the Bridget Joneses. For all the colour-supplement spreads locating the new singleton's home in a Clerkenwell loft, and her concerns as the conquest of a sexual mate and the loss of calories, the trend has a rather more complex origin. About half of these new single-person households will be over pensionable age. Many more will be a consequence of our high divorce rate: there were 155,310 decrees absolute granted in England and Wales in 1996, compared with 45,036 thirty years ago(2). We are also marrying later, and more of us are leaving home to go to university, where we develop the habit of living away from our parents.
Beside all this, demographic changes mean more twenty-somethings are forecast for the second decade of the new century. Yet for all the publicity given of late to the new economic power of single young women, perhaps most interesting is the rise in the number of male single-person households. 'From 1971 to 2016, the number of male one-person households has grown from 3 per cent to 13 per cent of total households,' explains Justin Worsley, senior consultant at The Henley Centre, the consumer consultancy. 'Plenty more 20- and 30-something men are living on their own, as the average age of marriage (now 28.6) keeps rising. What's driving them largely is an increase in disposable income, and an increase in mobility as they change jobs. Plus more go away to college, and get the habit of living away from home.'
The English county councils have already made detailed plans for new housing needs over the next two decades, based on government projections for the growth in urban spread. The Planning Minister, Richard Caborn, announced recently that half the new homes will be built on 'brownfield' sites that had already housed some development, and half on new rural sites. From Avon (where 44,500 new houses are planned) to Wiltshire (expecting 65,000), the counties' plans have led groups such as the Council for the Protection of Rural England to fear for the future of the green belt.
Professor Peter Hall, chairman of the Town and Country Planning Association and Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College, London, believes that 'the threat to the green belt has been exaggerated, just because a controversial development near Stevenage happens to be on green-belt land. For the most part, green belt will remain sacrosanct.' He does, however, worry that even the Government's own prediction of new housing need will prove too low. 'The 4.4 million was an underestimate: you could be talking of a million more, quite apart from the demographic shift we're reliably told is forcing the Government to raise its projections. It didn't include any allowance for the backlog that built up in the 1980s, especially in social housing, and it didn't take in the obsolescence of our housing stock - the Victorian houses wearing out in northern textile towns, the tackier end of the 1920s and 30s houses along east London bypasses, the residual 1960s stuff that has a short shelf life.'
Yet this does not mean that developers, geared towards the most profitable opportunities, should be left to decide what to build. Hall points to the distinct groups making up the new demand among single households. 'The three groups - younger people; the divorced and separated; and older people outliving their partners - have very different housing, lifestyle and consumption needs. Young people might like to live next to the wine bar, but the divorced usually have kids and will want space for their visiting times; and older people will tend to stay living where they were living as long as they can.' His recommendation is that local and central government should open a new round of strategic planning, and quickly. 'Developers like to make money, but we need a proper planning framework to make sure they go in the right place.'
Certainly, it would be wrong to overestimate the number of prospective new buyers who will want to buy property on the reclaimed rural landscape. Paul Rickard, head of research at market analysts Mintel, warns: 'Being single for some people is a lifestyle statement: I don't see such people wanting to live in Milton Keynes-type greenfield sites. And many of the new households will be people downsizing after, say, a divorce; these people are accustomed to urban or suburban homes, and I'd quibble how far they'd be prepared to sever these links and move to a rural site. Builders could be missing their targets.'
Others, too, stress that rural may not necessarily be where the demand is. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which publishes research into such demographic changes, has put its money where its mouth is: it has invested in what it calls 'Caspars' - an acronym for city-centre apartments for single people at affordable rents. 'There's likely to be a demand for city-centre apartments for rent by the young, relatively mobile, and by not-quite-so-young divorcees and never-married single people,' explains the foundation's director, Richard Best. 'We've decided to build a couple of these as we believe the market is there. They're also likely to make a difference to the liveliness and economic well-being of city centres.'
FOR those also considering entering the market, hurry: the revolution is happening already. 'Within five years we're going to see another million households in the UK, the bulk of them occupied by single people,' according to Paul Rickard. This will create opportunities for far more than property itself. Take consumer spending. 'If you're on your own, you do not need to compromise: people will be more headstrong about doing what turns them on, and taking that two-week trekking holiday in the Pyrenees, which a partner might never allow. Then there are mortgage products which will need to be rethought; and there's potentially an opportunity for manufacturers of appliances and durables to suit the smaller household.'
Single people who live alone, and are below retirement age, spend about Pounds190 a week on average, compared with Pounds170 for those in two-adult households(3). They spend Pounds7 a week on eating and drinking out, compared with Pounds6.50 for those in two-adult homes; they also tend to be more promiscuous grocery shoppers. This is where the bright investor will find new opportunities. 'For most blokes in particular, one person is not enough to cook for - so there will be a significant increase in takeaway food and ready meals,' according to Justin Worsley, at the Henley Centre. 'There will also be growth in white goods, such as kettles, toasters and TVs, which are bought per household not per person.
'People will also be using out-of-house activities more for socialising. Restaurants, pubs and cinemas will be their social base, especially as the entry costs for a nice restaurant tumble down in relation to a fast-food joint; already you can eat at Cafe Rouge for Pounds10 a head. One thing you'll see is a growth in suburban coffee bars, moving from the inner city.'
Already there is evidence of a trend towards pubs domesticating themselves, with sofas and homely designs. This will continue, says Justin Worsley. But if he were investing his own windfall? 'I'd be looking for leisure canapes . . . Rather than conventional restaurants you go to for three hours' entertainment, these are places where you can spend the same amount of time dipping in and out of food courts, bowling alleys, video games, even evening classes.' Your financial adviser may wish to nuance some of these tips. But in 20 years, don't say you weren't pointed in the right direction.
David Rowan is editor of the Analysis page.
(The Guardian, January 20 1998)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, January 20, 1998
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