Chancellor must take action on rising gender affordability housing gap ahead of Budget, says WBG

The gender housing affordability gap has widened in the year to April 2024, WBG’s analysis of the Office of National Statistics’ Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) data released today shows. 

Private renting has become significantly less affordable for both men and women in the past year, with both spending a larger proportion of their incomes on rent. However, the burden has grown higher for women, who now have to spend on average almost half of their earnings on rent for a one bedroom flat.

Ahead of today’s budget, the Women’s Budget Group is urging the Chancellor to tackle the widening gender housing affordability gap by permanently re-linking Local Housing Allowance with actual rents.

Key findings

• Earnings are not keeping up with private rents. In England, the percentage of women’s median earnings absorbed by rent for a one-bedroom property was 47% in the year to April 2024, up from 36% at the same time in 2023.
• For men, this figure stood at 26% in 2023 and has increased to 34% in the year to April 2024.
• This comes to an increase in the gender housing affordability gap from 10 percentage points to 13 percentage points.
• The same is true for two-bedroom properties, where the gap increased from 12 percentage points to 15 percentage points for England.
• The situation in London is especially acute, where a woman renting a two-bedroom property could expect to see 70% of her earnings absorbed by rent as of April 2024. This is up from 62% at the same time last year. For men, this figure is 55%.
• However, the average rent of a one-bedroom property has gone up a further £39 per month between April and September this year.
• The average rental price of a one-bedroom property in England has gone up by £133 from £956 a month to £1089 per month since September 2023. In London the average price of a one-bed has risen by £153.
• WBG analysis released last month showed that women were hardest hit by cuts to public services and changes to tax and social security since 2010, losing 9.4%, equivalent to £3,162 per year, in living standards, compared to men’s loss of 5.8% (£2,395 per year).

WBG calls on the Chancellor to

• Unfreeze and permanently re-link Local Housing Allowance rates to local rents, raising it to the 50th percentile to ensure housing benefit actually covers renting costs and protect women from falling into poverty and/or becoming homeless.
• Review overall benefit rates to make up for losses experienced by benefit claimants, and women in particular, over the past 14 years; and prevent the real value of benefits getting further eroded by the rising cost of living.

Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, Director of the Women’s Budget Group commented:

“The Chancellor committed to make this economy work for women. Rachel Reeves needs to address the widening gender housing affordability gap in order to deliver on this promise; an economy in which women can barely afford to rent on their own is clearly not working.

“With September’s inflation rate at 1.7% expected to determine benefit increases from April, and many predicting that inflation will go up again by the end of this year due to a rise in energy prices, we’re looking at a real-term cut in benefits for many people already struggling to make ends meet.

“Our work has shown that the on-and-off freeze in benefits over the past decade has been the main driver of women’s income loss since 2010, and that cuts to social security and public services have disproportionately hit women’s living standards.

“At the same time, the cost of private renting has been increasing, eating up more and more of women’s incomes. It is clear that women’s earnings are not keeping pace with private renting costs, and neither is Local Housing Allowance.

“The realignment of LHA with the 30th percentile of average local rents at the last Autumn Budget brought a flicker of hope to those on the lowest incomes facing spiralling housing costs. But this was a temporary measure and the Chancellor must be bolder than the previous Government. Permanently re-linking Local Housing Allowance rates to rents would give private renters more security and ensure housing benefit actually meets the cost of renting. Unless she acts on this, gender inequalities will deepen, leaving more women and their children vulnerable to homelessness and poverty.”

-ENDS-

Please contact press@wbg.org.uk