Happiness requires a room of one’s own

How can young people feel part of society when they spend their lives flitting from flat to flat?

Sometimes, research is valuable because it is new and surprising. And sometimes, it is valuable because it confirms what everyone already knew.

A new report on loneliness from the Office for National Statistics, commissioned as part of the Prime Minister’s response to the Jo Cox Foundation’s campaign on the topic, shows that those who feel least lonely tend to be married, own a house, are in good health and feel like part of their community. It seems pretty obvious. For most people, the traditional good life tends also to be the happiest.

Of the three loneliest groups in society, two fit the classic Eleanor Rigby mould: widowed older home owners and unmarried middle-agers, usually with long-term health conditions. But then comes a third: “younger renters with little trust and sense of belonging to their area”.

These are young people forced by the housing market to flit from flat to flat. They do not engage with their neighbours because they know (or fear) they will soon be gone.

When we talk about Britain’s housing crisis, we tend to focus on the economics – or the politics, given that renters are overwhelmingly likely to vote Labour. Too often, we ignore the social – even moral – dimension.

To become a home owner is not just to get your table stake at the property market casino. It is to gain something secure and tangible. When council tenants in the 1980s were given the right to buy, the very landscape of our estates changed: new front doors, new gardens, new driveways. People took pride in – and drew comfort from – having a place that was theirs.

Today, home ownership remains extraordinarily popular. Poll after poll shows that the overwhelming majority want it for themselves and others – whatever their income or background. And the main reason they give is not that it is a good investment, that it is cheaper than renting, or even to have a home to pass on to their children – although those all play a part. It is because it gives them somewhere to call their own.

A legion of other statistics confirm that home owners not only feel more positive about where they live, but are happier about their lives generally. In the most recent English Housing Survey, the average “life satisfaction score” (a mark out of 10) was 8.0 for owners vs 7.2 for those in the social rented sector. Home owners get more involved in their communities, feel more secure, enjoy greater psychological health, have children who are more likely to finish school.

So there may be something to the calls – following the ONS report – for young people to get off social media and into youth clubs. The Government has also talked, commendably, about encouraging long-term tenancy for renters. But in terms of giving people a stake – and a place – in society, nothing beats a home.

There are people who say this is old-fashioned thinking: that we need to accustom ourselves to the reality of renting as the norm, that we in Britain too often fetishise home ownership.

If anything, this is the opposite of the truth: we give home ownership not too much attention, but too little. Our rates of home ownership are at 30-year lows – and are now among the lowest in Europe. That is largely because our planning system has relentlessly failed to build the number, and kind, of homes that people want and need.

A society in which so many people are deprived of ownership is one that will become ever more stratified, and feel ever more unfair to those within it. In fact, we at the Centre for Policy Studies have spent the past few months working out what we should focus our research efforts on – and ended up with the word “OWNERSHIP” in 90pt font. (And bold. And underlined.) Because it’s only when a person has ownership of their finances, their future – and yes, their home – that they can live the kind of life they want.

It’s often been said recently that we cannot expect young people to be capitalists if they don’t have capital. This survey is a reminder that economic and social capital almost invariably go hand in hand. A sense of place, and of belonging, are the fundamentals of community – and the antidote to loneliness.

Robert Colvile is Director of the Centre for Policy Studies