My wife single-handedly runs a major welfare benefit scheme, which distributes the necessities of survival to countless local residents. At 8.00 on a late winter morning, our garden is the prime destination for every hungry bird in the village. It is a frenzy of avian activity of Hitchockian proportions. I always half expect to see Tippi Hedren cowering in fear behind the shed.
Late winter is a bad time for birds. As hedgerow berries become exhausted, worms cower in the soil's depths and few insects brave the inclement weather, starvation and subsequent death always threaten. By putting out food, my wife maintains the local bird population at an unnaturally high level.
This achievement is not without its downside. Every morning now, as the daylight hours grow and thoughts turn to nesting and mating, at least four male blackbirds may be seen squabbling over territory. Just who is going to build their home in that prime site in the thick hedge at the back of the garden with a food supply to hand?
Bird and animal populations ebb and flow, borne along on a fluctuating tide of food supplies and suitable habitat for nesting or burrowing. The study of the relationship between both animals and plants and their environment is known as ecology. The word, it was coined in the late 19th C, is derived from Greek roots and means 'housekeeping'.
An individual deploying an understanding of these processes would be an ideal candidate to investigate the relationship between humans, jobs and housing. What we get however is Prof. John Hills, who has just delivered his report entitled 'Ends and Means: the Future Roles of Social Housing in England'. John Hills is an economist. An economist, what's more, who is inextricably mired in the slough of state intervention in the market forces of supply and demand. You can read his CV here.
I rather suspect that a couple of years working as a commission only salesman selling 'right to buy' mortgages to council house tenants might have taught him more about the housing market, as well as more about himself and life generally, than all the years he has spent formulating academic theories about social exclusion. When Kelly commissioned the report she described it as independent. Heaven knows what a biased one would look like.
The supply of housing has many repercussions on society of which John Hills seems blissfully and blindly unaware, although I suppose we should be grateful for his revelation that perhaps employment and housing should be considered together. Not difficult mind you, these are after all merely the human equivalents of suitable bird food and nesting sites. So, what is the relationship between housing, employment and what effects may this relationship have on social behaviour?
In the last half of the eighteenth century, when agriculture provided a living for most, the typical age at which a couple married was about 29, with the birth of the first child following a year or two later. This was because the supply of cottages and land was limited and the acquisition of a property, invariably rented, required capital for a cow or two, other stock and basic farming implements. Hence a decade or more of paid employment was needed to save the required amount.
The industrial revolution was accompanied by a massive and rapid rise in population. Why? The mechanism was famously uncovered by Messrs Wrigley and Schofield. It is called nuptiality. Basically, it means that men and women started marrying earlier. Earlier marriage firstly produces more generations in a given period, and secondly extends the socially defined, as opposed to biological, reproductive life of the woman.
In the Leicestershire coalfield in the early nineteenth century, the age of marriage among miners fell to around 22 and the age of the wife at first birth to 23. They were now producing four generations a century instead of three and adding 25% or so to the completed family size.
The reason for this was simple. The mine owners, anxious to attract fit young men, built cottages for them to live in which were rented out at relatively low rents. Guaranteed housing and well rewarded work was a recipe for early marriage. This happened in all the centres of industrial production, whether extractive or manufacturing. The population soared.
The reverse process can be seen happening now. As the price of housing has risen and its availability fallen, particularly in the South-east, it has meant that couples who wish to own their home have to wait longer before they can start a family and establish a family home. Once again, the age of marriage, or co-habitation, has risen and the age of women at first birth has risen along with it. Left to its own devices, society generally adapts. It is a looped feed back system. It is not, please note, the consequences of feminist agitation for workplace equality encouraging women to follow careers.
However, this system is not enjoying universal deployment. It is applied differentially due to intervention by the state or local authority. In particular, this applies in the area of housing. If the state or local authority chooses to provide housing to rent, and then subsidises the rent, it is encouraging family formation where the need almost certainly does not exist. The consequences are easy to see.
The availability of subsidised housing, reinforced by the benefits system, means that household formation has become easy even for non-working, single, teenage girls. It is the reason also why the rate of unemployment is so disastrously high among council estate dwellers. The state is encouraging family formation where the means of sustenance, i.e. suitable employment, does not exist. Ms Kelly herself mentions that half of the families of working age living in social housing are economically inactive. The problem is reinforced due the difficulty of moving elsewhere.
This withdrawal of normal market constraints on human activity has repercussions throughout society. It manifests itself in behavioural problems, such as have been seen in south London as well as criminality generally. It produces and promotes welfare dependency. It favours population increase in one sector of the population, while applying a brake on population numbers elsewhere.
It also distorts the housing market, although the planning system bears the greatest guilt here. The more social housing is provided at non-economic rents, the greater will be the negative pressure applied to the private rented sector. This will cause a reduction in the amount of privately rented property. While the statist social engineers would be happy to see this no doubt, privately rented property is much more flexible. It does not trap individuals in one location from which they dare not move, which is what social housing does.
I see that Ms Kelly has formed a panel, containing Prof. Hills, to advise her. Beats taking action any day. She should come and talk to my wife, who although generous and considerate in times of winter hardship, is wise and realistic when the supply of natural food increases once again. The provided bird food is progressively reduced as the weather warms. A helping hand in times of hardship. Not an induced dependency for life.
1 comments:
Another interesting little nugget about social engineering.
We do it all the time. Try something that has failedmany times before because this time we will do this differently. We could be exploring space and curing cancer if we did not have to fix all these things every few decades.
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